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NOVELo BY 

THE DUCHESS, 

aIj of which are now issued iu Lovell’s Library, in 
handsome 12mo form, for 

2SO 

VIZ : 

Portia, or .By Passions Bochod, 

Piiyilis, 

Molly Bawn, 

Airy Fairy Lillian, 

Mrs. GeolFrey, Etc., Etc. 


The WGiho by The Duchess have passed, and far passed, all 
competifcors in the race for popularity and admirers. Editions 
i after editions have rapidly succeeded each other, both in England 

! and this Country, and it is an interesting fact (to the pubiisheis) 

j to know that the supply does not equal the demand. Select and 
read any one of the above, and you v/ill not be happy till you have 
read them all. It wouhi be of little use giving extracts from the 
thousands of eulogistic press criticisms. Your only plan is to 
buy one, and be convinced that the Novels hy The Duchess are 
the most intensely interesting light reading written for many a 

I 

1 year. 

I For sale hy all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent postage paid 
I on receipt of price, by the publishers. 

JOHN Vvh LOVELL CO., 

14 AND 16 Vesey Street, 

1 New Vork, 


LUMBERS NOW RBAiENB; 


1 . 

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e. 

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w. 

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67. 

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59. 

60. 
61. 
62. 


Hyperion, by Ix)ngfellow, 
Outre-Mer, by Longfellow. 

The Happy Boy, by Bjomson, - 
Arne, by B^Omson, - 
Prankenetein, by Mrs. Shelley, 
The Last of the Mohicans, 
Clytie, by Joseph Hatton, 

The Moonstone, by Collins Pt. I 
Do, Part U, - - - - 

Oliver Twiet, by Dickens - 
The Coming Race : or the New 
Utopia, by Lord Lytton, 

Lelia ; or the Siege of Granada, 
The Three Spaniards, Walker, 
The Tricks of the Greeks Un- 
veiled, by Robert Houdin, - 
L’Abb4 Constantin, by Hal6vy, 
Freckles, by R. F. Redcliff, 

The Dark Colleen^- 
They Were Married I - 
Seekers after God, by Farrar, 
The Spanish Nnn, - . - 
The Green Mountain Boys, 
Fleurettj^ by Eugene Scribe, - 
Second Thoughts, 

The New Magdalen, by Collins, 
Divorce^y Margaret Lee, 

Life of Washington, - 
Social Etiquette, ... 

Single Heart and Double Face, 
Irene: or the Lonely Manor, 
Vice VersA, by F. Anstey, 
Emeat Maltravers, by Lytton, - 
The Haunted House, and Cal- 
deron the Courtier, Lytton - 
John Halifax, by Miss Mulock, 
800 Leagues on the Amazon 
The Cryptogram.by Jules Verne, 
Life of Marion, - - - 

Paul and Virginia, 

Tale of Two Cities, by Dicken:?, 
The Hermits, by Kingsley, 

An Adventure in Tnule, and 
Marriage of Moira Fergus, - 
A Marriage in High Life, - 
Robin, by Mrs. Parr ... 
Two on a Tower, by Hardy, 
Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson, - 
Alice : or the Mysteries, being 
Part II of Ernest Maltravers, 
Duke of Kandos, by A. Mathey, 
Baron Munchausen - - - 

A Princess of Thule, - 
The Secret Despatch, Grant, 
Early Days of Christianity, by 
Canon Farrar, D. D., Part I, 

<• <1 (< <t 

Vicar of Wakefield - - 1 

Progress and Poverty, 

The i^y, by J. F. Cooper 
Eapt Lynn^ by Mrs. W^d, 

A Strange Story, by Lytton, - 
Adam Bede, by Geo. Eliot, P’t I, 

44 44 44 44 44 44 JJ 

The Golden Shaftj by Gibbon’ 
Portia; or by Passions Rocked, 
Last Days of Pompeii, 

The Two Duchesses, - 
Tom Brown at Rugby, 

The Wooing O’t, by Mrs. Alex- 
ander, Parti 
Do, Part 


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63. The Ve-^"^ Balzac, 

64. H:^atif cjij^pigsley, Part I, 

65. Seluvblden Sha'; j. Q. Smith. 

66. Mar, e.r Bridesmaids 

67. Hors^T OLIVER «8on, Part I 
^ ®9- '^akefield... Part II 

68. Gulliver’t by Swift, 

69. Amos BartT Mrs. Geo. Eliot, 

7?* Tbe Berber, Mayo, 

71. Silas Man Geo. Eliot, - .1 

72. The QijY JAM^f County, - .20 

73. Life by Hood, - .15 

74. by Charlotte BrontA, J0O 

75. .".^tiild’s History of Eng^nd, - .80 

76. Molly Bawn, by The Duchess, .20 

77. Pillone, - , - - - .15 

78. Phyllis, by T he Duchess. - - .20 

79. Romola, by Geo. Eliot, Part I, .15 

Do. Do. Part II, .15 

80. Science in Short Chapters, - .20 

81. Zanoni, by Lord Lytten, - - .20 

82. A Daughter of Hctn, . - - .20 

83. The Right andWrong Uses of the 

Bible, Rev. R. Hebcr Newton, .20 

84. Night and Morning, Part 1. - .15 

Do. Do. Part II, - .15 

85. Shandon Bells, by Wm. Black, - .20 

86. Monica, by The Duchess, - - .10 

87. Heart and Science. - - - .20 

88. The Golden Calf, - - - .20 

89. Dean’s Daughter, - - - .20 

90. Mrs. Geoffrey, by The Duchess, .20 

91. Pickwick Papers, Part I, - • .20 

Do. Do. Part II, - - .20 

92. Airy Fairy Lilian, - - - .20 

98. Maclcod of Dare, - - - .20 

94. Tempest Tossed, Part I, - - .20 

Do. “ II, - - .20 

95. Letters From High Latitudes, - .20 

96. Gideon Fleyce, oy Lucy, - .20 

97. India and Ceylon, by E. Haeckel, .20 

98. The Gypsy Queen, - - • JtO 

99. The Admiral’s Ward, by Mrs. 

Alexander, - - - - ,20 

100. Nlmport, by Bynner, Part I, .15 

Do. “ n, .15 

101. Harry Holbrooke, by Sir Randal 

H. Roberts, Bart., - - .20 

102. Tritons, by Bynner, Part I, - .1^ 

Do. II, - .15 

103. Let Nothing You Dismay, by 

Walter Besant, - - - .10 

104. Lady Audley’s Secret, by Miss 

M. E. Braddom - - - .20 

105. Woman’s Place To-day, by Lillie 

Devereux Blak^ - - • .20 

106. Dunallan, Grace Kennedy, P’t I .15 

Do. Do. “ II .15 

107. House Keeping and Home Mak- 

ing, by Marion Harland, - .16 

108. No New Thing, by W. E. Norris M 

109. The Spoopendyke Papers, by 

Stanley Huntley, - - - .20 

110. Raise liopes, by Qoldwin Smith, .15 

111. Capital and Uabor, by Kellogg, ,20 

112. Wanda, by Ouida, Pari I, - • .IS 

. D®. “ II, - - .16 

113. More Words aboat the Bible, 

/ by Rev. James Busdi, • - 20 

^Tjoys, Lord by The 

Buohess, • • • • .20 


JOHN W. toVELL COMPANY'S 


CHEA^ EDITIONS OF 


POPUJLAR WORKS. 



The following am all printed from large, clear type, on 

good paper, attractively bound in illtiminated paper covers. Hand- 
somely stamped cloih bindings for any volume, furnished for 10 
cents extra. 


Library Editions of those books marked with a * are also 
published large 12mo. size, handsomely bound in cloth. Price, $1.00 
a volume. 


By EDMOND ABOUT. 

A New Lease-of Life 20 

By Mrs. ALEXANDER. 

*The Wooing O’t, Part 1 15 

“ “ “ Part II 15 

♦The Admiral’s Ward 20 

By P. ANSTEY. 

♦Vice Versa; or, a Lesson to 
Fathers 20 

By sir SAMUEL BAKER. 

♦Cast up by the Sea 20 

♦Eight Years Wandering in Ceylon.. 20 
♦Rifle and Hound in Ceylon 20 

By HONORE DE BALZAC. 

The Vendetta, Tales of Love and Pas- 
sion 20 

By WALTER BESANT AND 
JAMES RICE. 

They Were iSlarried 10 

Let Nothing You Dismay 10 

By B JORNSTJERNE BJORNSON. 

The Happy Boy 10 , 

Arne 1^'' 

By WILHELM BERUSOE. 

Pillone 15 

By LILLIE DEVEREUX R’LAKE. 
Woman’s Place To-day \....20 


By Miss M. E. BRADDON. 

♦The Golden Calf 20 

♦Lady Audley’s Secret ^ 

By william BLACK. 

An Adventure in Thule and Marriage 

of Moira Fergus 10 

♦A Princess of Thule 20 

♦A Daughter of Heth 20 

*Shandon Belis 20 

♦Macleod of Dare 20 

♦Madcap Violet .20 

♦Strange Adventures of a Phaeton.. .20 

♦White Wings 20 

♦Kilmeny ^ 

♦Sunrise ^ 

♦That Beautiful Wretch 20 

♦In Silk Attire ^ 

♦The Three Feathers ^ 

♦Green Pastures and Piccadilly ^ 

♦Yolande 

By charlotte BRONTE. 
♦Jane Eyre 20 

By RHODA BROUGHTON. 

♦Second Thoughts > 20 

♦Belinda ^ 

^ By JAMES S. BUSH. 

More Words About the Bible 20 

By E. LASSETER BYNNER. 

Nimport, Part 1 16 

“ Partn 15 

Tritons, Parti 15 

“ Part U 15 


By Mrs^ CHAMPNEY 
Bourbon Lilies 20 

By WILKIE COLLINS. 

*The Moonstone, Parti 10 

“ “ Part II 10 

*The New Magdalen ' 20 

■•‘Heart and Science 20 

By J. FENIMORE COOPER. 

*The Last of the Mohicans 20 

*The Spy 20 

By THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 

The Spanish Nun 10 

By carl DETLEP. 

Irene, or the Lonely Manor 20 

By CHARLES DICKENS. 

♦Oliver Twist 20 

Pickwick Papers, Part 1 20 

“ “ Part II 20 

*A Tale of Two Citiesr 20 

‘•‘Child’s History of England .^ 


By “THE DUCHESS.” 


♦Portia, or by Passions Rocked 

♦Molly Bawn 

♦Phyllis 

Monica 

♦Mrs. Geoffrey 

♦Airy Fairy Lilian 

♦Beauty’s Daughters 

♦Faith and Unfaith 

♦Loys, Lord Beresford 

Moonshine and Marguerites. . . . 


By Lord DUFRERIN. 
Letters from High Latitudes 


By GEORGE ELIOT. 

♦Adam Bede, Part I 

“ “ Part II 

Amos Barton 

Silas Marner 

♦Romola. Parti 

“ PartU 


20 

.20 

.20 

.10 

,20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

10 


20 


15 

15 

10 

10 

15 

15 


By F. W. FARRAR, D.D. 

♦Seekers After God 20 

♦Early Days of Christianity, Part I... 20 
“ “ “ “ Part II.. 20 


By HENh^ GEORGE. 
Progress and Poverty 2C 

By CHARLES GIBBON. 

♦The Golden Sha>t 20 

t 

By OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Vicar of W akefleld . . . 10 

By Mrs. QORE. 

The Dean’s Daughter 20 

By jam tg GRANT. 

♦The Secret Despatch 20 

V-' By THOMAS hardy. 

T’wo on a Tower 20 

• By PAXTON HOOD. 

Life of Cromwell 15 

By LEONARD HENLEY 

♦Life of Washington, , 20 

By JOSEPH HATTON. 

♦Clytie 20 

♦Cruel London 20 

By LUDOVIC HALEVY. 

L’Abbd Constantin 20 

By ROBERT HOUDIN. 


The Tricks of the Greeks Unveiled. ..20 


By HORRY AND WEEMS. 

♦Life of Marion 20 

By Miss HARRIET JAY. i 

The Dark Colleen. . 20 

By MARION HARLAND. 
Housekeeping and Homemaking 15 

By STANLEY HUNTLEY. 
♦Spoopendyke Papers 20 

By WASHINGTON IRVING. 

♦The Sketch Book 20 

By SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Rasselas 10 


By JOHN FRANKLIN. 

Ameline du Bourg 15 

By octave PEUILLET. 

A Marriage in High Life 20 

By EMILE GABORIAU. ^ 

♦The Lerouge Case 20 

♦Monsieur Lecoq, Part 1 20 

“ “ Part II 20 

♦The Mystery of Orcival. . 4 . 20 

♦Other People’s Money . . 20 

♦In Peril of his Life . . . 20 

♦The Gilded Clique. ^ . ...2Q^ 

Promises of Marriage 


By JOHN P. KENNEDY. 

♦Horse Shoe Robinson, Part 1 15 

“ . “ Part II 15 

By EDWARD KELLOGG. 

Labor and Capital 20 

By GRACE KENNEDY. 

Dunallen, Part 1 15 

“ Part II 15 

By CHAS. KINGSLEY. 

♦The Hermits 20 

♦Hypatia, Parti 16 


J 

Bt MiiS M-^'QARET LEE. 
♦Dlrorce ^ 20 

Bt henry W.XLONQFELLOW. 

♦Hyperion /. 20 

♦Outre-Mer ] 20 

Bt SAMUEL LOVER. 

The Happy Man 10 


Bt L(:^RD LTTTON. 

The Coming Rac<t. 10 

Leila, or the Siege Granada 10 

Earnest Maltrarers^w. 20 

The Hannted House, 'tind Calderon 

the Courtier 10 

Alice; a scq^uel to Earnest MAitra?ers.20 

A Strange Story >.20 

♦Last Days of Pompeii /lO 

Zanoni jsO 

Night and Morning, Part 1 16 

“ “ Part n 15 

Paul Clifford 20 

Lady of Lyons 10 

Money 10 

Richelien 10 


( 

[ I By JAMES PAYN. 

♦Thicker than Water 20 

Bt CHARLES READE. 

Single Heart and Double Face 10 

Bt REBECCA FERGUS REDCLIFF. 
Freckles ....20 

Bt Sir RANDALL H. ROBERTS. 

Harry Holbrooke 20 

By Mrs. ROWSON. 

Charlotte Temple 10 

By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 

♦A Sea Queen 20 

By GEORGE SAND. 

The Tower of Percemont 

Bt Mrs. W. A. SAVILLE. 

Social Etiquette 15 

Bt MICHAEL SCOTT. 


Bt H. C. LUKEN8, 

♦Jets and Plashes 20 

Bt Mrs. E. LYNN LINTON. 

lone Stewart .’ 20 

Bt W. E. mayo. 

The Berber 20 

Bt a. MATHEY. 

Duke of Kandos 20 

The Two Duchesses 20 


♦Tom Cringle’s Log 20 

^ Bt EUGENE SCRIBE. 
Fleurette 20 

By J. PALGRAVE SIMPSON. 
Haunted Hearts 10 

By GOLDWm SMITH, D.C.L. 

False Hopes 15 

Bt dean swift 
Gulliver’s Travels 20 


Bt JUSTIN H. MCCARTHY. 

An Outline of Irish History 10 

Bt EDWARD MOTT. 


Bt W. M. THACKERAY. 
♦Vanity Pair, Part I 

“ “ n 


15 

15 


♦Pike County Folks 20 

By MAX MULLER. 

♦India, what can she teach us? 20 

By Miss MULOCK. 

♦John Halifax 20 

By R. HEBER newton 
T he Right and Wrong Usee of the 
Bible 20 

Bt W. E. NORRIS. 

♦No New Thing • 20 

Bt OUIDA. 

♦Wanda, Part 1 15 

“ Partn 15 

♦Under Two Flags, Part 1 20 

Partn 20 

Bt Mrs. OLIPHANT. 

♦The Ladies Lindores 20 

By LOUISA PARR. 

Robin.. — '20' 


BtJudgr D. P. THOMPSON. 


♦The Green Mountain Boys 20 

• Bt THEODORE TILTON. 

Tempest Tossed, Part 1 20 

“ “ Partn 20 

By JULES VERNE. 

*800 Leagues on the Amazon 10 

♦The Cryptogram 10 

By GEORGE WALKER. 

♦The Three Spaniards 20 

ByW. M. WILLIAMS. 

Science in Short Chapters 20 

By Mns. HENRY WOOD. 

♦East Lynne 20 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Paul and >Virginia 10 

Margar^, j'd her Bridesmaids 20 

The Qk ' •* the County 20 

,en 10 


TWO GREAT NOVELS. 


GIDEON FLEYCE. 

Bt henry W. LUCY. 

1 vol. 13mo. Handsome Paper Covers. No. 96 of Lovell’s Libbabt. 80c. 

“ When ‘ Gideon Fleyce ’ has been read, the (answer will be that Mr. 
Lncy has sacceeded. He has devUed an excellent plot, and he has told it ad- 
mirably. It is partly political ; it is partly a love story, though that element 
has comparatively a small share in it ; and it is a novel of incident. Mr. Lacy’s 
comments upon political matters are delightful.” — Scotsman. 

“ This Is one of the cleverest novels we have read for a long time. The 
author is sure to take a high place among contemporary novelists, may perhaps 
some day prove his fitness to rank among the great masters of the craft.” — 
Shbppield Independent. 

“ The novel has remarkable constructive excellence and striking situations. 
The flow of easy humour and the extraordinary perception of the ridiculous 
possessed by the autuor have here most facile display.’'— D aily News. 

“A very clever novel, and full of promise as a first venture in fiction; a 
highly entertaining story, * Gideon Fleyce ’ is so much above the average of 
novels that the accession of its author— especially as the creator of ” Napper,” 
to the rank of writers of fiction is deserving of a very hearty welcome.”— 
Academy. 

“ That is a powerful scene, and the whole of the sensational plot of which 
this scene is the central point, is managed with an ingenuity worthy almost of 
Wilkie Collins.”- Spectator. 

“An excellent story, which has the double interest of an exciting plot 
with telling episodes and of very clever analysis of character.” — T imes. 


THE GOLDEN SHAFT. 

By CHARLES GIBBON, Author of “Robin Gray,” &o. 

1 vol. 12mo. Handsome Paper Covers. No. 57 of Lovell’s Library. 20c. 

“ Mr. Gibbon is to be congratulated on the character of ‘Fiscal ’ Musgrave, 
which is as original as it is lifelike, and as attractive as it is original. The 
situation which chiefly displays it is well imagined, powerfully worked out, 
and sufficiently striking in itself.” — Academy. 

“ Excellent in every important respect ; the story is interesting, the plot 
is most ingeniously devised, the characters are cleverly conceived and con- 
sistently drawn, while several of them stand out picturesquely in their quaint 

originality Altogether, we may certainly congratulate Mr. Gibbon on his 

bo^.”— S aturday Review. 

“ Mr. Gibbon is at his best in this story. It contains some really powerful 
situations, and its plot is well worked out. The conscientious dlffioulties of 
the Fiscal, the father of the charming herione, are well developed by Mr. 
Gibbon, and the story will be read witn interest throughout.”— Manchester 
Examiner 

“ Altogether, the ‘ Golden Shaft ’ is gooc'v, and fully equals, if It does not im- 
prove upon, anything Mr. Gibbon has previously written.’’— Glasgow Herald. 

“It is pleasant to meet with a work by Mr. Gibbon that will remind his 
readers of the promise of his earliest efforts. The story of Thorbum and his 
family is full of power and pathos, as is the figure of the strong-natured 
Musgrave.” — Athen.«:um. 

“ On the whole, we have seen nothing before of Mr. Gibbon’s writing so 
good as this novel.”— Daily News. 

For sale by all Newsdealers and Booksellers. The Trade supplied by The 
American News Company and Branches. 

JOHN W. liOVEIili CO., 

14 & 16 Vesey St., New Yoi4e. 


XHB ( 

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Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Old Mexico, Arizona, Cali- 
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JNO. L. TRUSLOW, Genl Traveling Agent, Topeka, Kan. 



THE 


CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


A FAIRY TALE OF HOME, 


CHARLES DICKENS. 

•I 


NEW YORK: 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 
14 AND 16 Vesey Street, 





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THE 


CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


The kettle began it ! Don’t tell me what Mrs. Peerybin- 
gle said. I know better. Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on 
record to the end of time that she couldn’t say which of 
them began it ; but, I say the kettle did. I ought to know, I 
hope ! The kettle began it, full five minutes by the little 
waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner, before the Cricket ut- 
tered a chirp. 

As if the clock hadn’t finished striking, and the convulsive 
little Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left 
with a scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn’t mowed 
down half an acre of imaginary grass before the Cricket 
joined in at all ! 

Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that. 
I wouldn’t set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. 
Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account what- 
ever. Nothing should induce me. But, this is a question of 
fact. And the fact is, that the kettle began it, at least five 
minutes before the Cricket gave any sign of being in exist- 
ence. Contradict me, and I’ll say ten. 

Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have 
proceeded to do so in my very first word, but for this plain 
consideration — if I am to tell a story I must begin at the be- 
ginning ; and how is it possible to begin at the beginning, 
without beginning at the kettle } 

It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of 


i 6 o the cricket on the hearth. 

skill, you must understand, between the kettle and the 
Cricket. And this is what led to it, and how it came about. 

Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and 
clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked 
innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in 
Euclid all about the yard — Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle 
at the water-butt. Presently returning, less the pattens (and 
a good deal less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was 
but short), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which she 
lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant ; for, the water 
being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety 
sort of state wherein it seems to penetrate through every kind 
of substance, patten rings included — had laid hold of Mrs. 
Peerybingle’s toes, and even splashed her legs. And when 
we rather plume ourselves (with reason to) upon our legs, and 
keep ourselves particularly neat in point of stockings, we find 
this, for the moment, hard to bear. 

Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It 
wouldn’t , allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar ; it wouldn’t 
hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal * it 
would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very 
Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and 
hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up all 
the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle’s fingers, first of all turned 
topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity deserving 
of a better cause, dived sideways in — down to the very bot- 
tom of the kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has 
never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of 
the water, which the lid of that kettle employed against Mrs. 
Peerybingle, before she got it up again. 

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough,' even then; car- 
rying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout 
pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, “ I 
won’t boil. Nothing shall induce me ! ” 

But, Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good-humor, dusted 
her chubby little hands against each other, and sat down 
before the kettle, laughing. Meantime, the jolly blaze uprose 
and fell, flashing and gleaming on the little Haymaker at the 
top of the Dutch clock, until one might have thought he stood 
stock still before the' Moorish Palace, and nothing was in mo- 
tion but the flame. 

He was on the move, however ; and had his spasms, two 
to the second, all right and regular. But, his sufferings when 


THE CRICKET OH THE HEARTH, i6i 

the clock was going to strike, were frightful to behold ; and, 
when a Cuckoo looked out of a trap-door in the Palace, and 
gave note six times, it shook him, each time, like a spectral 
voice — or like a something wiry, plucking at his legs. 

It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise 
among the weights and ropes below him had quite subsided, 
that this terrified Haymaker became himself again. Nor was 
he startled without reason ; for these rattling, bony skeletons 
of clocks are very disconcerting in their operation, and . I 
wonder very much how any set of men, but most of all how 
Dutchmen, can have had .a liking to invent them. There is a 
popular belief that Dutchmen love broad cases and much 
clothing for their own lower selves j and they might know 
better than to leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected, 
surely. 

Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend 
the evening. Now it was, that the kettle, growing mellow and 
musical, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, 
and to indulge in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the 
bud, as if it hadn’t quite made up its mind yet to be good 
company. Now it was, that after two or three such vain at- 
tempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all mo- 
roseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy 
and hilarious, as never maudling nightingale yet formed the 
least idea of. 

So plain too ! Bless you, you might have understood it 
like a book — ^better than some books you and I could name, 
perhaps. With its warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud 
which merrily and gracefully ascended, a few feet, then hung 
about the chimney-corner as its own domestic Heaven, it 
trolled its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness, that 
its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire j and the lid 
itself, the recently rebellious lid — such is the influence of a 
bright example — performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a 
deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known the use of 
its twin brother. 

That this song of the kettle’s was a song of invitation and 
welcome to somebody out of doors : to somebody at that 
moment coming on, towards the snug small home and the 
crisp fire : there is no doubt whatever. Mrs. Peerybingle 
knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing before the hearth. It’s 
a dark night, sang the kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying 
by the way j and, above, all is mist and darkness, and, below, 

II 


i 62 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, 


all is mire and clay ; and there’s only one relief in all the sad 
and murky air ; and I don’t know that it is one, for it’s 
nothing but a glare ; of deep and angry crimson, where the 
sun and wind together ; set a brand upon the clouds for being 
guilty of such weather ; and the widest open country is a 
long dull streak of black ; and there’s hoar-frost on the finger- 
post, and thaw upon the track ; and the ice it isn’t water, and 
the water isn’t free ; and you couldn’t say that anything is 
what it ought to be ; but he is coming, coming, coming ! 

And here, if you like, the Cricket did chime in ! with a 
Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup of such, magnitude, by way of 
chorus ; with a voice so astoundingly disproportionate to its 
size, as compared with the kettle ; (size ! you couldn’t see it !) 
that if it had then and there burst itself like an overcharged 
gun, if it had fallen a victim on the spots, and chirruped its 
little body into fifty pieces, it would have seemed a natural 
and inevitable consequence, for which it had expressly la^ 
bored. 

The kettle had had the last of its solo performance. It 
persevered with undiminished ardor ; but the Cricket took 
first fiddle and kept it. Good Heaven, how it chirped ! Its 
shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, and 
seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a star. There 
was an indescribable little trill and tremble in it, at its loudest, 
which suggested its being carried off its legs, and made to 
leap again, by its own intense enthusiasm. Yet they went 
very well together, the Cricket and the kettle. The burden 
of the song was still the same ; and louder, louder, louder still, 
they sang it in their emulation. 

The fair little listener — ^for fair she was, and young : 
though something of what is called the dumpling shape ; but 
I don’t myself object to that — lighted a candle, glanced at the 
Haymaker on the top of the clock, who was getting in a pretty 
average crop of minutes ; and looked out of the window', where 
she saw nothing, owing to the darkness, but her own face 
imaged in the glass. And my opinion is (and so would yours 
have been), that she might have looked a long way, and seen 
nothing half so agreeable. When she came back, and sat down 
in her former seat, the Cricket and the kettle were still keeping 
it up, with a perfect fury of competition. The kettle’s weak 
side clearly being, that he didn’t know when he was beat. 

There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, 
chirp, chirp ! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum — 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 163 

m! Kettle making play in the distance, like a great top. 
Chirp, chirp, chirp ! Cricket round the corner. Hum, hum, 
hum — m — m ! Kettle sticking to him in his own way ; no idea 
of giving in. Chirp, chirp, chirp ! Cricket fresher than ever. 
Hum, hum, hum — m — m ! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, 
chirp, chirp ! Cricket going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum 
— m — m ! Kettle not to be finished. Until at last they get 
so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, helter-skelter, of the 
match, that whether the kettle chirped and the Cricket hum- 
med, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, or they 
both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer 
head than yours or mine to have decided with anything like 
certainty. But, of this there is no doubt : that, the kettle and 
the Cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some power 
of amalgamation best known to themselves, sent,. each, his 
fireside song of comfort streaming into a ray of the candle 
that shone out through the window, and a long way down the 
lane. And this light, bursting on a certain person who, on the 
instant, approached towards it through the gloom, expressed 
the whole thing to him, literally in a twinkling, and cried, 
Welcome home, old fellow 1 Welcome home, ray boy 1 

This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, 
and was taken off the fire. Mrs. Peerybingle then went run- 
ning to the door, where, what with the wheels of a cart, the 
tramp of a horse, the voice of a man, the tearing in and out 
of an excited dog, and the surprising and mysterious appear- 
ance of a baby, there was soon the very What’s-his-name to 
pay. 

Where the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got 
hold of it in that flash of time, I don’t know. But a live baby 
there was, in Mrs. Peerybingle’s arms ; and a pretty tolerable 
amount of pride she seemed to have in it, when she was drawn 
gently to the fire, by a sturdy figure of a man, much taller and 
much older than herself, who had to stoop a long way down, 
to kiss her. But she was worth the trouble. Six foot six, with 
the lumbago, might have done it. 

Oh goodness, John ! ” said Mrs. P. “ W»hat a state you 
are in with the weather ! ” 

He was something the worse for it, undeniably. The thick 
mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw ; aiid 
between the fog and fire together, there were rainbows in liis 
very whiskers. 

“ Why, you see, Dot,” John made answer, slowly, as he ura 


164 the crk^et on the hearth 

rolled a shawl from about his throat j and warmed his hands j 
“ it — it an’t exactly summer weather. So, no wonder.” 

“I wish you wouldn’t call me Dot, John, I don’t like it,’* 
said Mrs. Peerybingle : pouting in a way that clearly showed 
she did like it, very much. 

“ Why what else are you ?” returned John, looking down 
upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze 
as his huge hand and arm could give. “ A dot and ” — here 
he glanced at the baby — “a dot and carry — I won’t say it, 
for fear I should spoil it ; but I was very near a joke. I don’t 
know as ever I was nearer.” 

He was often near to something or other very clever, by 
his own account : this lumbering, slow, honest John ; this 
John so heavy, but so light of spirit ; so rough upon the sur- 
face, but so gentle at the core ; so dull without, so quick with 
in; so stolid, but so good! Oh Mother Nature, give thy 
children the true poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor 
Carrier’s breast — he was but a Carrier by the way — and we 
can bear to have them talking prose, and leading lives of 
prose ; and bear to bless thee for their company I 

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure, and her 
baby in her arms ; a very doll of a baby : glancing with a 
coquettish thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her delicate 
little head just enough on one side to let it rest in an odd, 
half-natural, half-affected, wholly nestling and agreeable man- 
ner, on the great rugged figure of the Carrier. It was pleasant 
to see him, with his tender awkwardness, endeavoring to adapt 
his rude support to her slight need, and make his burly mid- 
dle-age a leaning-staff not inappropriate to her blooming 
youth. It was pleasant to observe how Tilly Slowboy, waiting 
in the background for the baby, took special cognizance 
(though in her earliest teens) of this grouping; and stood 
with her mouth and eyes wide open, and her head thrust for- 
ward, taking it in as if it were air. Nor was it less agreeable 
to observe how John the Carrier, reference being made by Dot 
to the aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of 
touching the infant, as if he thought he might crack it ; and 
bending down, surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of 
puzzled pride, such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed 
to show, if he found himself, one day, the father of a young 
Canary. 

** An’t beautiful, John ? Don’t he look precious in his 
^eep ? ” 



« an't he beautiful, JOHN ? ''—Page 164. 


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'••41 


•S/J 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 165 

‘‘Very precious/’ said John. “ Very much so. He gen- 
erally zs asleep, an’t he? ” 

“ Lor, John ! Good gracious no I 

“Oh,” said John, pondering. “I thought his eyes was 
generally shut. Halloa ! ” 

“ Goodness, John, how you startle one 1 ” 

‘ It an’t right for him to turn ’em up in that way I ” said 
the astonished Carrier, “ is it ? See how he’s winking with 
both of ’em at once ! And look at his mouth 1 Why he’s 
gasping like a gold and silver fish 1 ” 

“You don’t deserve to be a father, you don’t,” said Dot 
with all the dignity of an experienced matron. “ But how 
should you know what little complaints children are troubled 
with, John ! You wouldn’t so much as know their names, you 
stupid fellow.” And when she had turned the baby over on 
her left arm, and had slapped its back as a restorative, she 
pinched her husband’s ear, laughing. 

“ No,” said John, pulling off his outer-coat. “ It’s very 
true. Dot. I don’t know much about it. I only know that 
I’ve been fighting pretty stiffly with the wind to-night. It’s 
been blowing north-east, straight into the cart, the whole way 
home.” 

“ Poor old man, so it has ! ” cried Mrs. Peerybingle, in- 
stantly becoming very active, “ Here ! Take the precious 
darling, Tilly, while I make myself of some use. Bless it, I 
could smother it with kissing it, I could ! Hie then, good 
dog ! Hie Boxer, boy ! Only let me make the tea first, 
John ; and then I’ll help you with the parcels, like a busy bee. 
‘ How doth the little ’ — and all the rest of it, you know, John. 
Did you ever learn ‘ how doth the little,’ when you went to 
school, John ? ” 

“ Not to quite know it,” John returned. “ I was very 
near it once. But I should only have spoilt it, I dare say.” 

“ Ha, ha,” laughed Dot. She had the blithest little laugh 
you ever heard. “What a dear old darling of a dunce you 
are, John, to be sure ! ” 

Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see 
that the boy with the lantern which had been dancing to and 
fro before the door and window, like a Will o’ the Wisp, took 
due care of the horse ; who was fatter than you would quite be- 
lieve, if I gave you his measure, and so old that his birthday 
was lost in the mists of antiquity. Boxer, feeling that his at- 
tentions were due to the family in general, and must be im- 


i66 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

partially distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering in* 
constancy ; now, describing a circle of short barks round the 
horse, where he was being rubbed down at the stable-door \ 
now, feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, and fa* 
cetiously bringing himself to sudden stops ; now, eliciting a 
shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing chair near the 
fire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her 
countenance ; now, exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the 
baby ; now, going round and round upon the hearth, and 
lying down as if he had established himself for the night ; 
now, getting up again, and taking that nothing of a fag-end 
of a tail of his, out into the weather, as if he had just remem- 
bered an appointment, and was off, at a round trot, to keep it. 

“ There ! There’s the teapot, ready on the hob ! ” said 
Dot ; as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. 
“ And there’s the old knuckle of ham ; and there’s the butter ; 
and there’s the crusty loaf, and all ! Here’s the clothes-basket 
for the small parcels, John, if you’ve got any there — where 
are you, John ? Don’t let the dear child fall under the grate, 
Tilly, whatever you do ! ” 

It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting 
the caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare and sur- 
prising talent for getting this baby into difficulties ; and had 
several times imperilled its short life, in a quiet way peculiarly 
her own. She was of a spare and straight shape, this young 
lady, insomuch that her garments appeared to be in constant 
danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which 
they were loosely hung. Her costume was remarkable for the 
partial development, on all possible occasions, of some flannel 
vestment of a singular structure ; also for affording glimpses, 
in the region of the back, of a corset, or pair of stays, in 
color a dead-green. Being always in a state of gaping admi- 
ration at everything, and absorbed, besides, in the perpetual 
contemplation of her mistress’s perfections and the baby’s. 
Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of judgment, may be said to 
have done equal honor to her head and to her heart ; and 
though these did less honor to the baby’s head, which they 
were the occasional means of bringing into contact with deal 
doors, dressers, stair-rails, bedposts, and other foreign sub- 
stances, still they were the honest results of Tilly Slowboy’s 
constant astonishment at finding herself so kindly treated, and 
installed in such a comfortable home. For, the maternal and 
paternal Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly had 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 167 

been bred by public charity, a foundling ; which word, though 
only differing from fondling by one vowel’s length, is very 
different in meaning, and expresses quite another thing. 

To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her 
husband, tugging at the clothes-basket, and making the most 
strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried it), 
would have amused you almost as much as it amused him. 
It may have entertained the Cricket too, for anything I know ; 
but, certainly, it now began to chirp again, vehemently. 

“Heyday!” said John, in his slow way. “It’s merrier 
than ever, to-night, I think.” 

“ And it’s sure to bring us good fortune, John ! It always, 
has done so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth, is the luckiest 
thing in all the world I ” 

John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought 
into his head, that she was his Cricket in chief, and he quite 
agreed with her. But, it was probably one of his narrow 
escapes, for he said nothing. 

“The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, was 
on that night when you brought me home — ^when you brought 
me to my new home here ; its little mistress. Nearly a year 
ago. You recollect, John ? ” 

O yes. John remembered. I should think so 1 

“ Its chirp was such a welcome to me 1 It seemed so full 
of promise and encouragement. It seemed to say, you would 
be kind and gentle with me, and would not expect (I had a 
fear of that, John, then) to find an old head on the shoulders 
of your foolish little wife.” 

John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then 
the head, as though he would have said No, no ; he had had no 
such expectation ; he had been quite content to take them 
as they were. And really he had reason. They were very 
comely. 

“ It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so ; for 
you have ever been, I am sure, the best, the most considerate, 
the most affectionate of husbands to me. This has been a 
happy home, John ; and I love the Cricket for its sake ! ” 

“ Why so do I then,” said the Carrier. “ So do I, Dot.” 

“ I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the 
many thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes, 
in the twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and down- 
hearted, John — before baby was here to keep me company and 
make the house gay— when I have thought how lonely you 


i68 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


would be if I should die ; how lonely I should be if I could 
know that you had lost me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp 
upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of another little voice, 
so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose coming sound my 
trouble vanished like a dream. And when I used to fear — I 
did fear once, John, I was very young you know — that ours 
might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage, I being such a 
child, and you more like my guardian than my husband ; and 
that you might not, however hard you tried, to be able to learn 
to love me, as you hoped and prayed you might j its Chirp, 
Chirp, Chirp has cheered me up again, and filled me with new 
trust and confidence. I was thinking of these things to-night, 
dear, when I sat expecting you ; and I love the Cricket for 
their sake ! ” 

“And so do I,” repeated John. “ But Dot ? /hope and 
pray that I might learn to love you ? How you talk ! I had 
learnt that, long before I brought you here, to be the Cricket’s 
little mistress. Dot ! ” 

She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up 
at him with an agitated face, as if she would have told him 
something. Next moment she was down upon her knees be- 
fore the basket, speaking in a sprightly voice, and busy with 
the parcels. 

“ There are not many of them to-night, John, but I saw 
some goods behind the cart, just now j and though they give 
more trouble, perhaps, still they pay as well j so we have no 
reason to grumble, have we ? Besides, you have been deliver- 
ing, I dare say, as you came along ? ” 

“ Oh yes,” John said. “ A good many.” 

“ Why what’s this round box ? Heart alive, John, it’s a 
wedding-cake ! ” 

“ Leave a woman alone to find out that,” said John, 
admiringly. “ Now a man would never have thought of it. 
Whereas, it’s my belief that if you was to pack a wedding-cake 
up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead, or a pickled salmon 
keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to find it 
out directly. Yes ; I calledTor it at the pastry-cook’s.” 

“And it weighs I don’t know what — whole hundred- 
weights ! ” cried Dot, making a great demonstration of trying 
to lUt it. “ Whose is it, John ? Where is it going ? ” 

“ Read the writing on the other side,” said John. 

“Why, John ! My Goodness, John ! ” 

“ Ah 1 who’d have thought it ! ” John returned. 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 169 

“ You never mean to say,” pursued Dot, sitting on the 
floor and shaking her head at him, “ that it’s Gruff and Tack- 
leton the toy-maker ! ” 

John nodded. 

Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. Not in 
assent — in dumb and pitying amazement ; screwing up her 
lips the while with all their little force (they were never made 
for screwing up ; I am clear of that), and looking the good 
Carrier through and through, in her abstraction. Miss Slow- 
boy, in the mean time, who had a mechanical power of repro- 
ducing scraps of current conversation for the delectation of 
the baby, with all the sense struck out of^ them, and all the 
nouns changed into the plural number, inquired aloud of that 
young creature. Was it Gruff s and Tackletons the toy-makers 
then, and Would it call at Pastry-cooks for wedding-cakes, and 
Did its mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought them 
homes ; and so on. 

And that is really to come about ! ” said Dot. Why, 
she and I were girls at school together, John.” 

He might have been thinking of her, or nearly thinking of 
her, perhaps, as she was in that same school time. He looked 
upon her with a thoughtful pleasure, but he made no answer. 

“ And he’s as old ! As unlike her ! — Why, how many 
years older than you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John ? ” 

How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night at one 
sitting, than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four, I wonder ! ” 
replied John, good-humoredly, as he drew a chair to the round 
table, and began at the cold ham. “ As to eating, I eat but 
little ; but, that little I enjoy. Dot.” 

' Even this, his usual sentiment at meal times, one of his 
innocent delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and 
flatly contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his little 
wife, who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box 
slowly from her with her foot, and never once looked, though 
her eyes were cast down too, upon the dainty shoe she 
generally was so mindful of. Absorbed in thought, she stood 
there, heedless alike of the tea and John (although he called 
to her, and rapped the table with his knife to startle her), 
until he rose and touched her on the arm ; when she looked 
at him for a moment, and hurried to her place behind the tea- 
board, laughing at her negligence. But, not as she had 
laughed before. The manner and the music were quite 
changed. 


THE CRICKET OH THE HEARTH. 


170 


The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was 
not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it. 

“ So, these are all the parcels, are they, John ? ” she said, 
breaking a long silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted 
to the practical illustration of one part of his favorite senti- 
ment — certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn’t be ad- 
mitted that he ate but little. “ So these are all the parcels ; 
are they, John.? ” 

“That’s all,” said John. “ Why — no — I — ” laying down 
his knife and fork, and taking a long breath, “ I declare — 
I’ve clean forgotten the old gentleman ! ” 

“ The old gentleman ? ” 

“ In the cart,” said John. “ He was asleep, among the 
straw, the last time I saw him. I’ve very nearly remembered 
him, twice, since I came in ; but, he went out of my head 
again. Holloa ! Yahip there ! Rouse up ! That’s my 
hearty ! ” 

John said these latter words outside the door, whither he 
had hurried with the candle in his hand. 

Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to 
The Old Gentleman, and connecting in her mystified imagina- 
tion certain associations of a religious nature with the phrase, 
was so disturbed, that hastily rising from the low chair by the 
fire to seek protection near the skirts of her mistress, and 
coming into contact as she crossed the doorway with an ancient 
Stranger, she instinctively made a charge or butt at him with 
the only offensive instrument within her reach. This instru- 
ment happening to be the baby, great commotion and alarm 
ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer rather tended to increase ; 
for, that good dog, more thoughtful than its master, had, it 
seemed, been watching the old gentleman in his sleep, lest he 
should walk off with a few young poplar trees that were tied 
up behind the cart j and he still attended on him very closely, 
worrying his gaiters in fact, and making dead sets at the 
buttons. 

“You’re such an undeniable good sleeper, sir,” said John, 
when tranquillity was restored ; in the mean time the old gentle- 
man had stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of 
the room ; “ that I have half a mind to ask you where the 
other six are — only that would be a joke, and I know I should 
spoil it. Very near though,” murmured the Carrier, with a 
chuckle ; “ very near J ” . 

The Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


171 

singularly bold and well defined for an old man, and dark, 
bright, penetrating eyes, looked round with a smile, and 
saluted the Carrier’s wife by gravely inclining his head. 

His garb was very quaint and odd — a long, long way be- 
hind the time. Its hue was brown, all over. In his hand he 
held a great brown club or walking-stick ; and striking this 
upon the floor, it fell asunder, and became a chair. On which 
he sat down, quite composedly. 

“ There ! ” said the Carrier, turning to his wife. “ That’s 
the way I found him, sitting by the roadside ! Upright as a 
milestone. And almost as desi.” 

“ Sitting in the open air, John !” 

“In the open air,” replied the Carrier, “just at dusk. 
‘ Carriage Paid,’ he said ; and gave me eighteenpence. Then 
he got in. And there he is.” 

“ He’s going, John, I think ! ” 

Not at all. He was only going to speak. 

“ If you please, I was to be left till called for,” said the 
Stranger, mildly. Don’t mind me.” 

With that, he took a pair of spectacles from one of his 
large pockets, and a book from another, and leisurely began 
to read. Making no more of Boxer than if he had been a 
house lamb ! 

The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. 
The Stranger raised his head ; and glancing from the latter 
to the former, said, 

“Your daughter, my good friend ? ” 

“Wife,” returned John. 

“ Niece ? ” said the Stranger. 

“Wife,” roared John. 

“ Indeed ? ” said the Stranger. “ Surely ? Very young ! ” 

He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. But, 
before he could have read two lines, he again interrupted him- 
self to say : 

“ Baby, yours ? ” 

• John gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an ans¥7er 
in the affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet. 

“Girl?” 

“ Bo-o-oy ! ” roared John. 

Also very young, eh ? ” 

Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. “ Two months and 
three da-ays ! Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o ! Took very 
fine-ly ! Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful 

8 


173 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, 


chi-ild ! Equal to the general run of children at five months 
o-old ! Takes notice, in a way quite won-der-ful ! May seem 
impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready ! ” 

Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking 
these short sentences into the old man’s ear, until her pretty 
face was crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a stub- 
born and triumphant fact ; while Tilly Slowboy, with a melo- 
dious cry of “ Ketcher, Ketcher ” — which sounded like some 
unknown words, adapted to a popular Sneeze — performed 
some cow-like gambols round that all unconscious Innocent. 

“ Hark ! He’s called for, sure enough,” said John. 
“ There’s somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly.” 

Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from 
without; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch that 
any one could lift if he chose — and a good many people did 
choose, for all kinds of neighbors liked to have a cheerful 
word or two with the Carrier, though he was no great talker 
himself. Being opened, it gave admission to a little, meagre, 
thoughtful, dingy-faced man, who seemed to have made him- 
self a great-coat from the sack-cloth covering of some old 
box ; for, when he turned to shut the door, and keep the 
weather out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment, the 
inscription G & T in large black capitals. Also the word 
GLASS in bold characters. 

“ Good-evening John ! ” said the little man. “ Good- 
evening Mum. Good-evening Tilly. Good-evening Unbe- 
known ! How’s Baby Mum ? Boxer’s pretty well I hope ? ” 
All thriving, Caleb,” replied Dot. “ I am sure you 
need only look at the dear child, for one, to know that.” 

“ And I’m sure I need only look at you for another,” said 
Caleb. 

He didn’t look at her though ; he had a wandering and 
thoughtful eye which seemed to be always projecting itself 
into some other time and place, no matter what he said ; a 
description which will equally apply to his voice. 

“ Or at John for another,” said Caleb. “ Or at Tilly, as 
far as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer.” 

“ Busy Just now, Caleb ? ” asked the Carrier. 

“Why, pretty well, John,” he returned, with the distraught 
air of a man who was casting about for the Philosopher’s 
stone, at least. “ Pretty much so. There’s rather a run on 
Noah’s Arks at present. I could have wished to improve 
upon the Family, but I don’t see how it’s to be done at the 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


173 


price. It would be a satisfaction to one’s mind, to make it 
clearer which was Shems and Hams, and which was Wives. 
Flies an’t on that scale neither, as compared with elephants 
you know ! Ah ! well ! Have you got anything in the parcel 
line for me, John ? ” 

The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had 
taken off ; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and 
paper, a tiny flower-pot. 

“There it is !” he said, adjusting it with great care. 
“ Not so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds ! ” 

Caleb’s dull eye brightened, as he took it and thanked him. 

“Dear, Caleb,” said the Carrier. “Very dear at this 
season.” 

“ Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, 'whatever it 
cost,” returned the little man. “ Anything else, John ? ” 

“ A small box,” replied the Carrier. “ Here you are I ” 

“ ‘ For Caleb Plummer,’ ” said the little man, spelling out 
the direction. “‘With Cash.’ With Cash, John? I don’t 
think it’s for me.” 

“With Care,” returned the Carrier looking over his 
shoulder. “ Where do you make out cash ? ” 

“ Oh ! To be sure ! ” said Caleb. “ It’s all right. With 
care ! Yes, yes ; that’s mine. It might have been with cash, 
indeed, if my dear Boy in the Golden South Americas had 
lived, John. You loved him as a son; didn’t you. You 
needn’t say you did. /know, of course. ‘Caleb Plummer. 
With care.’ Yes, yes, it’s all right. It’s a box of dolls’ eyes 
for my daughter’s work. I wish it was her own sight in a 
box, John.” 

“ I wish it was, or could be ! ” cried the Carrier. 

“ Thank’ee,” said the little man. “ You speak very hearty. 
To think that she should never see the Dolls — and them a 
staring at her, so bold all day long ! That’s where it cuts. 
What’s the damage, John ? ” 

“ I’ll damage you,” said John, “ if you inquire. Dot ! 
Very near ? ” 

“ Weill it’s like you to say so,” observed the little man. 
“ It’s your kind way. Let me see. I think that’s all.” 

“ I think not,” said the Carrier. “ Try again.” 

“ Something for our Governor, eh ? ” said Caleb after pon- 
dering a little while. “ To be sure. That’s what I came for : 
but my head’s so running on them Arks and things I He 
hasn’t been here, has he ? ” 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


m 

** Not he,” returned the Carrier. He’s too busy, court- 
ing.” 

“ He’s coming round though,” said Caleb ; ‘‘for he told 
me to keep on the near side of the road going home, and it 
was ten to one he’d take me up. I had better go, by the bye 
— ^You couldn’t have the goodness to let me pinch Boxer’s 
tail. Mum, for half a moment could you ? ” 

“ Why, Caleb ! what a question ! ” 

“ Oh never mind. Mum,’* said the little man. “ He 
mightn’t like it perhaps. There’s a small order just come in, 
for barking dogs ; and I should wish to go as close to 
Natur’ as I could, for sixpence. That’s all. Never mind 
Mum.” 

It happened opportunely, that Boxer, without receiving 
the proposed stimulus, began to bark with great zeal. But, 
as this implied the approach of some new visitor, Caleb, post- 
poning his study from the life to a more convenient season, 
shouldered the round box, and took a hurried leave. He might 
have spared himself the trouble, for he met the visitor upon 
the threshold. 

“Oh ! You are here, are you ? Wait a bit. I’ll take you 
home. John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my 
service to your pretty wife. Handsomer every day ! Better 
too, if possible ! And younger,” mused the speaker, in a 
low voice j “ that’s the Devil of it ! ” 

“ I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. 
Tackleton,” said Dot, not with the best grace in the world; 
“ but for your condition.” 

“ You know all about it then ? ” 

“ I have got myself to believe it, somehow,” said Dot. 

“ After a hard struggle, I suppose ? ” 

“ Very.” 

Tackleton the Toy-merchant, pretty generally known as 
Gruff and Tackleton — ^for that was the firm, though Gruff had 
been bought out long ago ; only leaving his name, and as some 
said his nature, according to its Dictionary meaning, in the 
business — Tackleton the Toy-merchant, was a man whose vo- 
cation had been quite misunderstood by his Parents and Guar- 
dians. If they had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp' 
Attorney, or a Sheriff’s Officer, or a Broker, he rnight have 
sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, after having had 
the full run of himself in ill-natured transactions, might have 
turned out amiable, at last, for the sake of a little freshness 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


175 

and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the peaceable pur- 
suit of toy-making, he was a domestic Ogre, who had been 
living on children all his life, and was their implacable enemy. 
He despised all toys ; wouldn^t have bought one for the world ; 
delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim expressions into the 
faces of brown paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bell- 
men who advertised lost lawyers' consciences, movable old 
ladies who darned stockings or carved pies ; and other like 
samples of his stock in trade. In appalling masks ; hideous, 
hairy, red-eyed Jacks in Boxes ; Vampire Kites ; demoniacal 
Tumblers who wouldn’t lie down and were perpetually flying 
forward, to stare infants out of countenance ; his soul revelled. 
They were his only relief, and safety-valve. He was great in 
such inventions. Anything suggestive of a Pony-nightmare, 
was delicious to him. He had even lost money (and he took 
to that toy very kindly) by getting up Goblin slides for magic- 
lanterns, whereon the Powers of Darkness were depicted as a 
sort of supernatural shell-fish, with human faces. In intensify- 
ing the portraiture of Giants, he had sunk quite a little capital ; 
and, though no painter himself, he could indicate^l for the in- 
struction of his artists, with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive 
leer for the countenances of those monsters, which was safe to 
destroy the peace of mind of any young gentleman between the 
ages of six and eleven, for the whole Christmas or Midsummer 
Vacation. 

What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other 
things. You may easily suppose, therefore, that within the 
great green cape, which reached down to the calves of his 
legs, there was buttoned up to the chin an uncommonly pleas- 
ant fellow ; and that he was about as choice a spirit, and as 
agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a pair of bull-headed 
looking boots with mahogany-colored tops. 

Still, Tackleton, the toy-merchant, was going to be married. 
In spite of all this, he was going to be married. And to a 
young wife too, a beautiful young wife. 

He didn’t look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the 
Carrier’s kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in 
his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and 
his hands tucked down into the bottoms of his pocket*, and 
his whole sarcastic ill-conditioned self peering out of one 
little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence of 
any number of ravens. But, a Bridegroom he designed to be. 

In three days’ time. Next Thursday. The last day of 


iy6 the cricket OH THE HEARTH 

the first month in the year. That^s my v/edding-day,” said 
Tackleton. 

Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and 
one eye nearly shut ; and that the one eye nearly shut, was al- 
ways the expressive eye ? I don’t think I did. 

“ That’s my wedding-day ! ” said Tackleton, rattling his 
money. 

“ Why, it’s our wedding-day too,” exclaimed the Carrier. 

“ Ha ha ! ” laughed Tackleton. ‘‘ Odd ! You’re just such 
another couple. Just!” 

The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is 
not to be described. What next ? His imagination would 
compass the possibility of just such another Baby, perhaps. 
The man was mad. 

“ I say ! A word with you,” murmured Tackleton, nudg- 
ing the Carrier with his elbow, and taking him a little apart. 
“You’ll come to the wedding ? We’re in the same boat, you 
know.” 

“ How in the same boat?” inquired the Carrier. 

“A little disparity, you know;” said Tackleton, with an- 
other nudge. “ Come and spend an evening with us, before- 
hand.” 

“Why?” demanaed John, astonished at this pressing 
hospitality. 

“Why?” returned the other. “ That’s a new way of re- 
ceiving an invitation. Why, for pleasure — sociability, you 
know, and all that ! ” 

“I thought you were never sociable,” said John, in his 
plain way. 

“Tchah ! It’s of no use to be anything but free with you 
I see,” said Tackleton. “ Why, then, the truth is you have a 
— ^what tea-drinking people call a sort of a comfortable ap- 
pearance together, you and your wife. We know better, you 
know, but — ” 

“ No, we don’t know better,” interposed John. “ What 
are you talking about ? ” 

“ Well ! We don’f know better, then,” said Tackleton. 
“ We’ll agree that we don’t. As you like ; what does it mat- 
ter ? I was going to say, as you have that sort b( appearance, 
your company will produce a favorable effect on Mrs. Tackle- 
ton that will be. And, though I don’t think your good lady’s 
very friendly to me, in this matter, still she can’t help herself 
from falling into my views, for there’s a compactness and cozi- 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, 


177 

ness of appearance about her that always tells, even in an in- 
different case. You’ll say you’ll come ? ” 

“We have arranged to keep our Wedding-Day (as far 
as that goes) at home,” said John. “We have made the promv 
ise to ourselves these six months. We think, you see, that 
home — ” 

“ Bah ! what’s home ? ” cried Tackleton. “ Four walls 
and a ceiling ! (why don’t you kill that Cricket ; /would ! I 
always do. I hate their noise.) There are four walls and a 
ceiling at my house. Come to me ! ” 

“You kill your Crickets, eh .? ” said John. 

“ Scrunch ’em, sir,” returned the other, setting his heel 
heavily on the floor. “You’ll say you’ll come? It’s as much 
your interest as mine, you know, that the women should per- 
suade each other that they’re quiet and contented, and couldn’t 
be better off. I know their way. Whatever one woman says, 
another woman is determined to clinch, always. There’s that 
spirit of emulation among ’em, sir, that if your wife says to 
my wife, ^ I’m the happiest woman in the world, mine’s 
the best husband in the world, and I dote on himf^y wife 
will say the same to yours, or more, and half believe it.” 

“ Do you mean to say she don’t, tb--a ? ” asked the Car- 
rier. 

“Don’t!” cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh. 
“ Don’t what ? ” 

The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, “ dote upon 
you.” But, happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it 
twinkled upon him over the turned up collar of the cape, 
which was within an ace of poking it out, he felt it such an 
unlikely part and parcel of anything td be doted on, that he 
substituted, “ that she don’t believe it ? ” 

“Ah you dog I You’re joking,” said Tackleton. 

But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift 
of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he 
was obliged to be a little more explanatory, 

“ I have the humor,” said Tackleton ; holding up the fin- 
gers of his left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply 
“ there I am, Tackleton to wit “I have the humor, sir, to 
marry a young wife, and a pretty wife : ” here he rapped his 
little finger, to express the Bride ; not sparingly, but sharply \ 
with a sense of power. “I’m able to gratify that humor and 
I do. It’s my whim. But — now look there ! ” 

He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully, beforo 
12 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


178 

the fire ; leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watch- 
ing the bright blaze. The Carrier looked at her, and then at 
him, and then at her, and then at him again. 

“ She honors and obeys, no doubt, you know,” said Tack- 
leton ; “ and that, as I am not a man of sentiment, is quite 
enough for me. But do you think there’s anything more in 
it.>” 

“I think,” observed the Carrier, “that I should chuck 
any man out of window, who said there wasn’t.” 

“ Exactly so,” returned the other with an unusual alacrity 
of assent. “ To be sure ! Doubtless you would. Of course. 
I’m certain of it. Good-night. Pleasant dreams ! ” 

The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and 
uncertain, in spite of himself. He couldn’t help showing it, 
in his manner. 

“ Good-night, my dear friend ! ’’ said Tackleton, compas- 
sionately. “ I’m off. We’re exactly alike, in reality, I see. 
You won’t give us to-morrow evening? Well! Next day 
you g^tput visiting, I know. I’ll meet you there, and bring 
my wife that is to be. It’ll do her good. You’re agreeable ? 
Thank’ee. What’s that ! ” 

It was a loud cry from the Carrier’s wife : a loud, sharp, 
sudden cry, that made the room ring, like a glass vessel. She 
had risen from her seat, and stood like one transfixed by 
terror and surprise. The Stranger had advanced towards the 
fire to warm himself, and stood within a short stride of her 
chair. But quite still. 

“ Dot ! ” cried the Carrier. “ Mary ! Darling ! What’s 
the matter ? , 

They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had 
been dozing on the cake-box, in the first imperfect recovery 
of his suspended presence of mind, seized Miss Slowboy by 
the hair of her head, but immediately apologized. 

“ Mary I ” exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his 
arms. “ Are you ill I What is it ? Tell me, dear ! ” 

She only answered by beating her hands together, and fall- 
ing into a wild fit of laughter. Then, sinking from his grasp 
upon the ground, she covered her face with her apron, and 
wept bitterly. And then she laughed again, and then she 
said how cold it was, and suffered him to lead her to the fire, 
where she sat down as before. The old man standing, as be- 
fore, quite still. 

“ I’m better, John,” she said. “ I’m quite well now — I — ” 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


179 

“ John ! ” But John was on the other side of her. Why 
turn her face towards the strange old gentleman, as if address- 
ing him ! Was her brain wandering ? 

“ Only a fancy, John dear — a kind of shock — a something 
coming suddenly before my eyes — I don’t know what it was. 
It’s quite gone, quite gone.” 

“I’m glad it’s gone,” muttered Tackleton, turning the ex- 
pressive eye all round the room. “ I wonder where it’s gone, 
and what it was. Humph ! Caleb, come here ! Who’s that 
with the gray hair ? ” 

“ I don’t know, sir,” returned Caleb in a whisper. “ Never 
see him before, in all njy life. A beautiful figure for a nut- 
cracker j quite anew model. With a screw-jaw opening down 
into his waistcoat, he’d be lovely.” 

“ Not ugly enough,” said Tackleton. 

“ Or for a firebox, either,” observed Caleb, in deep con- 
templation, “ what a model ! Unscrew his head to put the 
matches in ; turn him heels up’ards for the light ; and what a 
firebox for a gentleman’s mantel-shelf, just as he stands ! ” 

“ Not half ugly enough,” said Tackleton. “ Ncfthing in 
him at all I Come ! Bring that box ! All right now, I 
hope ? ” 

“ Oh quite gone ! Quite gone P’ said the little woman, 
waving him hurriedly away. “ Good-night ! ” 

“ Good-night,” said Tackleton. “ Good-night, John Peery- 
bingle ! Take care how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it 
fall, and I’ll murder you ! Dark as pitch, and weather worse 
than ever, eh ? Good-night.” 

So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out 
at the door ; followed by Caleb with the wedding-cake on his 
head. 

The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little 
wife, and so busily engaged in soothing and tending her, chat 
he had scarcely been conscious of the Stranger’s presence, 
until now, when he again stood there, their only guest. 

“ He don’t belong to them, you see,” said John. “ I must 
give him a hint to go.” 

“ I beg your pardon, friend,” said the old gentleman, ad- 
vancing to him ; “ the more so, as I fear your wife has not 
been well ; but the Attendant whom my infirmity,” he touched 
his ears and shook his head, “ renders almost indispensable, 
not having arrived, I fear there must be some mistake. The 
bad night which made the shelter of your comfortable cart 


iSo the cricket oh the hearth. 

(may I never have a worse ! ) so acceptable, is still as bad as 
ever. Would you, in your kindness, suffer me to rent a bed 
here?” 

“Yes, yes,” cried Dot. “ Yes ! Certainly ! ” 

“ Oh 1 ” said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this 
consent. “ Well ! I don’t object j but, still I’m not quite sure 
that—” 

“ Hush 1 ” she interrupted. “ Dear John ! ” 

“Why, he’s stone deaf,” urged John. 

“ I know he is, but — Yes sir, certainly. Yes ! certainly ! 
I’ll make him up a bed, directly, John.” 

As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and 
the agitation of her manner, were so strange, that the Carrier 
stood looking after her, quite confounded. 

Did its mothers make it up a Beds then ! ” cried Miss 
Slowboy to the Baby; “and did its hair grow brown and 
curly, when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious 
Pets, a-sitting by the fires ! ” 

With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, 
which is often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, 
the Carrier, as he walked slowly to and fro, found himself 
mentally repeating even these absurd words, many times. So 
many times that he got them by heart, and was still conning 
them over and over, like a lesson, when Tilly, after adminis- 
tering as much friction to the little bald head with her hand 
as she thought wholesome (according to the practice of nurses), 
had once more tied the Baby’s cap on. 

“ And frighten it a precious Pets, a-sitting by the fires. 
What frightened Dot, I wonder ! ” mused the Carrier, pacing 
to an fro. 

He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toy- 
merchant, and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite un- 
easiness. For, Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had 
that painful sense, himself, of being a man of slow perception, 
that a broken hint was always worrying to him. He certainly 
had no intention in his mind of linking anything that Tackle- 
ton had said, with the unusual conduct of his wife, but the 
two subjects of reflection came into his mind together, and he 
could not keep them asunder. 

The bed was soon made ready ; and the visitor, declining 
all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot — quite 
well again, she said, quite well again — arranged the great 
chair in the chimney-corner for her husband ; filled his pipe 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. i8i 

and gave it him j and took her usual little stool beside him 
on the hearth. ^ 

She always would sit on that little stool. I think she must 
have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling, 
little stool. 

She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I 
should say, in the four quarters of the globe. To see her put 
that chubby little finger in the bowl and then blow down the 
pipe to clear the tube, and, when she had done so, affect to 
think that there was really something in the tube, and blow a 
dozen times, and hold it to her eye like a telescope, with a most 
provoking twist in her capital little face, as she looked down 
it, was quite a brilliant thing. As to the tobacco, she was 
perfect mistress of the subject ; and her lighting oh the pipe, 
with a wisp of paper, when the Carrier had it in his mouth — 
going so very near his nose, and yet not scorching it — was 
Art, high Art. 

And the Cricket and the kettle, turning up again, acknowl- 
edged it ! The bright fire, blazing again, acknowledged it ! 
The little Mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, acknowl- 
edged it ! The Carrier, in his smoothing forehead and ex- 
panding face, acknowledged it, the readiest of all. 

And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe, 
and as the Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed, 
and as the Cricket chirped ; that Genius of his Hearth and 
Home (for such the Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, 
into the room, and summoned many forms of Home about him. 
Dots of all ages, and all sizes, filled the chamber. Dots 
who were merry children, running on before him gather- 
ing flowers, in the fields ; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half 
yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image j newly- 
married Dots alighting at the door, and taking wondering 
possession of the household keys ; motherly little Dots, at- 
tended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened ; 
matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of 
daughters, as they danced at rustic balls ; fat Dots, encircled 
and beset by troops of rosy grandchildren ; withered Dots, 
who leant on sticks, and tottered as they crept along. Old 
Carriers too, appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at their 
feet ; and newer carts with younger drivers (“ Peerybingle 
Brothers ” on the tilt) ; and sick old Carriers, tended by the 
gentlest hands ; and graves of dead and gone old Carriers, 
green in the churchyard. And as the Cricket showed him all 


iS2 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

these things — he saw them plainly, though his eyes were fixed 
upon the fire — the Carrier’s heart grew light and happy, and 
he thanked his Household Gods with all his might, and cared 
no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do. 

But what was that young figure of a man, which the same 
Fairy Cricket set so near Her stool, and which remained there, 
singly and alone ? Why did it linger still, so near her, with 
its arms upon the chimney-piece, ever repeating “ Married 1 
and not to me ! ” 

O Dot ! O failing Dot ! There is no place for it in all 
your husband’s visions \ why has its shadow fallen on his 
hearth ! 


(Kl^irpr tl^jc 

Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone 
by themselves, as the Story-books say — and my blessing, 
with yours to back it I hope, on the Story-books, for saying 
anything in this workaday world ! — Caleb Plummer and his 
Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, in a little 
cracked nutshell of a wooden house, which was, in truth, no 
better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick nose of Gruff 
and Tackleton. The premises of Gruff and Tackleton were 
the great feature of the street ; but you might have knocked 
down Caleb Plummer’s dwelling with a hammer or two, and 
carried off the pieces in a cart. 

If any one had done the dwelling-house of Caleb Plum- 
mer the honor to miss it after such an inroad, it would have 
been, no doubt, to commend its demolition as a vast improve- 
ment. It stuck to the premises of Gruff and Tackleton, like 
a barnacle to a ship’s keel, or a snail to a door, or a little 
bunch of toadstools to the stem of a tree. But, it was the 
germ from which the full-grown trunk of Gruff and Tackle- 
ton had sprung ; and, under its crazy roof, the Gruff before 
last, had, in a small way, made toys for a generation of old 
boys and girls, who had played with them, and found them 
out, and broken them, and gone to sleep. 

I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 183 

here. I should have said that Caleb lived here, and his poor 
Blind Daughter somewhere else — in an enchanted home of 
Caleb’s furnishing, where scarcity and shabbiness were not, 
and trouble never entered. Caleb was no sorcerer, but in the 
only magic art that still remains to us, the magic of devoted, 
deathless love. Nature had been the mistress of his study; 
and from her teaching, all the wonder came. 

The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discolored, 
walls blotched and bare of plaster here and there, high crev- 
ices unstopped and widening every day, beams mouldering and 
tending downward. The Blind Girl never knew that iron was 
rusting, wood rotting, paper peeling off ; the size, and shape, 
and true proportion of the dwelling, withering away. The 
Blind Girl never knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthen- 
ware were on the board ; that sorrow and faintheartedness were 
in the house ; that Caleb’s scanty hairs were turning grayer and 
more gray, before her sightless face. The Blind Girl never 
knew they had a master, cold, exacting, and uninterested — 
never knew that Tackleton was Tackleton in short ; but lived 
in the belief of an eccentric humorist who loved to have his 
jest with them, and who, while he was the Guardian Angel of 
their lives, disdained to hear one word of thankfulnessi<. 

And all was Caleb's doing ; all the doing of her simple 
father ! But he too had a Cricket on his Hearth ; and listen- 
ing sadly to its music when the motherless Blind Child was 
very young, that Spirit had inspired him with the thought that 
even her great deprivation might be almost changed into a 
blessing, and the girl made happy by these little means. For 
all the Cricket tribe are potent Spirits, even though the peo- 
ple who hold converse with them do not know it (which is 
frequently the case) ; and there are not in the unseen world, 
voices more gentle and more true, that may be so implicitly 
relied on, or that are so certain to give none but tenderest 
counsel, as the Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside 
and the Hearth address themselves to human kind. 

Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their 
usual working-room, which served them for their ordinary 
living-room as well ; and a strange place it was. There were 
houses in it, finished and unfinished, for Dolls of all stations 
in life. Suburban tenements for Dolls of moderate means ; 
kitchens and single apartments for Dolls of the lower classes ; 
capital town residences for Dolls of high estate. Some of 
these establishments were already furnished according to es- 


i84 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


timate, with a view to the convenience of Dolls of limited in- 
come ; others, could be fitted on the most expensive scale, at 
a moment’s notice, from whole shelves of. chairs and tables, 
sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery. The nobility and gentry, 
and public in general, for whose accommodation these tene- 
ments were designed, lay, here and there in baskets, staring 
straight up at the ceiling ; but, in denoting their degrees in 
society, and confining them to their respective stations (which 
experience shows to be lamentably difficult in real life), the 
makers of these Dolls had far improved on Nature, who is 
often frowning and perverse : for, they, not resting on such 
arbitrary marks as satin, cotfon-print, and bits of rag, had 
superadded striking personal differences which allowed of no 
mistake. Thus, the Doll-lady of distinction had wax limbs of 
perfect symmetry ; but, only she and her compeers. The next 
grade in the social scale being made of leather, and the next 
of coarse linen stuff. As to the common people, they had just 
so many matches out of tinder-boxes, for their arms and legs, 
and there they were — established in their sphere at once be- 
yond the possibility of getting out of it. 

There were various other samples of his handicraft, besides 
Dolls, in Caleb Plummer’s room. There were Noah’s Arks, in 
which the Birds and Beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I as- 
sure you j though they could be crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, 
and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass. By a bold 
poetical license, most of these Noah’s Arks had knockers on 
the doors ; inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as suggestive 
of morning callers and a Postman, yet a pleasant finish to the 
outside of the building. There were scores of melancholy lit- 
tle carts which, when the wheels went round, performed most 
doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other instru- 
ments of torture ; no end of cannon, shields, swords, spears, 
and guns. There were little tumblers in red breeches, inces- 
santly swarming up high obstacles of red-tape, and coming 
down, head first, on the other side ; and there were innumer- 
able old gentlemen of respectable, not to say venerable, 
appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, inserted for 
the purpose, in their own street doors. There were beasts of 
all sorts : horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spot- 
ted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the 
thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it would have 
been hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque 
figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities 


THE CRICKE T ON THE HEAR TH 1 85 

on tne turning of a handle^ so it would have been no easy task 
to mention any human folly, vice or weakness, that had not 
its type, immediate or remote, in Caleb Plurrimer’s room. And 
not in an exaggerated form, for very little handles will move 
men and women to as strange performances, as any Toy was 
ever made to undertake. i 

In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter 
sat at work. The Blind Girl busy as a Doll’s dressmaker j 
Caleb painting and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable 
family mansion. 

The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb’s face, and his 
absorbed and dreamy manner, which would have sat well on 
some alchemist or abtruse student, were at first sight an odd 
contrast to his occupation, and the trivialities about him. But, 
trivial things, invented and pursued for bread, become very 
serious matters of fact ; and, apart from this consideration, I 
am not at all prepared to say, myself, that if Caleb had been 
a Lord Chamberlain, or a Member of Parliament, or a lawyer, 
or even a great speculator, he would have dealt in toys one 
whit less whimsical, while I have a very great doubt whether 
they would have been as harmless. 

So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your 
beautiful new great-coat,” said Caleb’s daughter. 

“ In my beautiful new great-coat,” answered Caleb, glanc- 
ing towards a clothes-line in the room, on which the sack-cloth 
garment previously described, was carefully hung up to dry. 

“ How glad I am you bought it, father ! ” 

“ And of such a tailor, too,” said Caleb. “ Quite a fash- 
ionable tailor. It’s too good for me.” 

The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with 
delight. “ Too good, father ! What can be too good for 
you ? ” 

“ I’m half-ashamed to wear it though,” said Caleb, watch- 
ing the effect bf what he said, upon her brightening face; 
“ upon my word ! When I hear the boys and people say be- 
hind me, * Hal-loa ! Here’s a swell 1 ’ I don’t know which 
way to look. And when the beggar wouldn’t go away last 
night ; and when I said I was a very common man, said ‘ No, 
your Honor ! Bless your Honor, don’t say that 1 ’ I was quite 
ashamed. I really felt as if I hadn’t a right to wear it.” 

Happy Blind Girl ! How merry she was in her exulta^ 
tioni 

“I see you, father,” she said, clasping her hands, “as 


i86 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, 


plainly, as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with 
me. A blue coat — 

“ Bright blue,’* said Caleb. 

“ Yes, yes ! Bright blue ! ” exclaimed the girl, turning up 
her radiant face ; “ the color I can just remember in the 
blessed sky ! You told me it was blue before ! A bright 
blue coat ” — 

“ Made loose to the figure,” suggested Caleb. 

Made loose to the figure ! ” cried the Blind Girl, laughing 
heartily \ “ and in it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, 
your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair — looking 
so young and handsome ! ” 

“Halloa ! Halloa ! ” said Caleb. “ I shall be .vain, pres- 
ently ! ” 

“ I think you are, already,” cried the Blind Girl, pointing 
at him, in her glee. “ I know you, father ! Ha, ha, ha ! I’ve 
found you out, you see ! ” 

How different the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as he 
sat observing her ! She had spokeu of his free step. She 
was right in that. For years and years, he had never 
once crossed that threshold at his own slow pace, but with a 
footfall counterfeited for her ear ; and never had he, when his 
heart was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was to ren- 
der hers so cheerful and courageous ! 

Heaven knows ! But I think Caleb’s vague bewilderment 
of manner may have half originated in his having confused 
himself about himself and everything around him, for the love 
of his Blind Daughter. How could the little man be other- 
wise than bewildered, after laboring for so many years to de- 
stroy his own identity, and that of all the objects that had any 
bearing on it ! 

“ There we are, ” said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to 
form the better judgment of his work ; “ as near the real thing 
as sixpenn’orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that 
the whole front of the house opens at once ! If there was only 
a staircase in it, now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in 
at ! But that’s the worst of my calling, I’m always deluding 
myself, and swindling myself.” 

“You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, 
father .? ” 

“ Tired ! ” echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation, 
“what should tire me, Bertha ? /was never tired. What does 
it mean? ” 


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«TUI BXTSNT TO WHICH KK IS WINKINQ AT THIS MOMENT I’— 1S7. 

cs. 



CRiCKEt ON TEE HEARTff. igy 

■ ' To give the greater force to his words, he checked himself 
in an involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and 
yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented as 
in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards ; and 
hummed a fragment of a. song. It was a Bacchanalian song, 
something about a Sparkling Bowl. He sang it with an as- 
sumption of a Devil-may-care voice, that made his face a 
thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful than ever. 

“What! You’re singing, are you?” said Tackleton, put- 
ting his head in at the door. “ Go it! I can’t sing.” 

Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn’t what 
is generally termed a singing face, by any means. 

“ I can’t afford to sing,” said Tackleton. “ I’m ^2i&you 
can. I hope you can afford to work too. Hardly time for 
both, I should think ? ” 

“ If you could only see him, Bertha, how he’s winking at 
me ! ” whispered Caleb.^ “ Such a man to joke ! you’d think, 
if you didn’t know him, he was in earnest — ^wouldn’t you 
now ? ” 

The Blind Girl smiled and nodded. 

“ The bird that can sing and won’t sing, must be made to 
sing, they say,” grumbled Tackleton. “What about the owl 
that can’t sing, and oughtn’t to sing, and will sing j is there any- 
thing that he should be made to do ? ” 

“ The extent to which he’s winking at this moment ! ” 
whispered Caleb to his daughter. “ O, my gracious ! ” 

“ Always merry and lighthearted with us ! ” cried the 
smiling Bertha. 

“ O, you’re there, are you ? ” answered Tackleton. “Poor 
Idiot!” 

He really did believe she was an Idiot ; and he founded 
the belief, I can’t say whether consciously or not, upon her 
being fond of him. 

“ Well ! and being there, — how are you ? ” said Tackleton, 
in his grudging way. 

“ Oh ! well j quite well. And as happy as even you can 
wish me to be. As happy as you would make the whole 
world, if you could ! ” 

“ Poor Idiot ! ” muttered Tackleton. “ No gleam of reason. 
Not a gleam ! ” 

The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it ; held it for a 
moment in her own two hands ; and laid her cheek against it 
tenderly, before releasing it. There was such unspeakable 


i88 


TBE CRICJtET THE HEARTH. 


affection and such fervent gratitude in the act, that Tackleton 
himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than usual : 

“ What’s the matter now ? ” 

“ I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sleep 
last night, and remembered it in my dreams. And when th« 
day broke, and the glorious red sun — the red sun, father ? ” 

“ Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha,” said poor 
Caleb, with a woeful glance at his employer. 

“ When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to strike 
myself against in walking, came into the room, I turned the 
little tree towards it, and blessed Heaven for making things 
so precious, and blessed you for sending them to cheer me ! ” 

“ Bedlam broke loose ! ” said Tackleton under his breath. 
“ We shall arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. 
We’re getting on ! ” 

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared 
vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really 
were uncertain (I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done 
anything to deserve her thimiks, or not. If he could have been 
a perfectly free agent, at that moment, required, on pain of 
death, to kick the Toy-merchant, or fall at his feet, according 
to his merits, I believe it would have been an even chance 
which course he would have taken. Yet, Caleb knew that 
with his own hands he had brought the little rose-tree home 
for her, so carefully, and that with his own lips he had forged 
the innocent deception which' should help to keep her from 
suspecting how much, how very much, he every day denied 
himself, that she might be the happier. 

“Bertha!” said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a 
little cordiality. “ Come here.” 

“ Oh ! I can come straight to you ! You needn’t guide 
me I ” she rejoined. 

“ Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha ? ” 

“ If you will ! ” she answered, eagerly. 

How bright the darkened face ! How adorned with light, 
the listening head ! 

“ This is the day on which little what’s-her-name, the spoilt 
child, PdSrybingle’s wife, pays her regular visit to you — ^makes 
her fantastic Pic-Nic here ; ain’t it ?” said Tackleton, with a 
strong expression of distaste for the whole concern. 

“ Yes,” replied Bertha. “ This is the day.” 

“ I thought so,” said Tackleton. “ I should like to join 
the party.” 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH jgj 

“ Do you hear that, father ! ” cried the Blind Girl in an 
ecstasy. 

“ Yes, yes, I hear it,’’ murmured Caleb, with the fixed look 
of a sleep-walker ; but I don’t believe it. It’s one of my 
lies, I’ve no doubt.” 

“You see I — I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more 
into company with May Fielding,” said Tackleton. “ I am 
going to be married to May.” 

“ Married I ” cried the Blind Girl, starting from him. 

“ She’s such a con-founded Idiot,” muttered Tackleton, 
“ that I was afraid she’d never comprehend me. Ah, Bertha ! 
Married ! Church, parson, clerk, beadle, glass-coach, bells, 
breakfast, bride-cake, favors, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all 
the rest of the tom-foolery. A wedding, you know ; a wed- 
ding. Don’t you know what a wedding is ” 

“ I know,” replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. “ I 
understand ! ” 

“ Do you ? ” muttered Tackleton. “ It’s more than I ex- 
pected. Well 1 On that account I want to join the party, 
and to bring May and her mother. I’ll send in a little some- 
thing or other, before the afternoon. A cold leg of mutton, or 
some comfortable trifle of that sort. You’ll expect me ? ” 

“ Yes,” she answered. 

She had drooped her head, and turned away : and sostoot-, 
with her hands crossed, musing. 

“ I don’t think you will,” muttered Tackleton, looking at 
her ; “ for you seem to have forgotten all about it already. 
Caleb ! ” 

“ I may venture to say I’m here, I suppose,” thought 
Caleb. “Sir!” 

“ Take care she don’t forget what I’ve been saying to 
her.” 

“ She never forgets,” returned Caleb. “ It’s one of the 
few things she an’t clever in.” 

“ Every man thinks his own geese swans,” observed the 
Toy-merchant, with a shrug. “ Poor devil 1 ” 

Having delivered himself of which remark, with infinite 
contempt, old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew. 

Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. 
The gayety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was 
very sad. Three or four times, she shook her head, as if be- 
wailing some remembrance or some loss ; but, her sorrowful 
reflections found no vent in words. 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


^96 

' It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in 
yoking a team of horses to a wagon by the summary process 
of nailing the harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that 
she drew near to his working-stool, and sitting down beside 
him, said ,: 

“Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my 
patient, willing eyes.” • 

“Here they are,” said Caleb. .“Always ready. They are 
more yours than mine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. 
What shall your eyes do for you, dear ? ” 

. “ Look round the room, father.” 

“ All right,” said Caleb. “ No sooner said than done, 
Berth^” 

“ Tell me about it.” 

“It’s much the same as usual,” said Caleb. “Homely, 
but very snug. - The gay colors on the walls ; the bright flow- 
ers on the plates and dishes j the shining wood, where there 
are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness 
of the building ; make it very pretty.” 

Cheerful and neat it was wherever Bertha’s hands could 
busy themselves. But nowhere else, were cheerfulness and 
neatness possible, in the old crazy shed which Caleb’s fancy 
so transformed. 

“ You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant 
as when your wear the handsome coat ? ” said Bertha, touch- 
ing him. 

“ Not quite so gallant,” answered Caleb. “ Pretty brisk 
though.” 

“ Father,” said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, 
and stealing one arm round his neck, “ tell me something 
about May. She is very fair?” 

“ She is indeed,” said Caleb. And she was indeed. It 
was quite a rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his 
invention. 

“ Her hair is dark,” said Bertha, pensively, “ darker than 
mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have 
often loved to hear it. Her shape — ” 

“ There’s not a Doll’s in all the room to equal it,” said 
Caleb. “And her eyes ! ” — 

He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck, 
and, from the arm that clung about him, came a warning 
pressure' which he understood too well. 

He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


291 

then fell back upon the song about the sparkling bowl ; fik. 
infallible resource in all such difficulties. 

“ Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired 
you know of hearing about him. — Now, was I ever?” she 
said, hastily. 

“ Of course not,” answered Caleb, “ and with reason.” 

Aji ! With how much reason ! ” cried the Blind Girl, 
with such fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were so 
pure, could not endure to meet her face ; but dropped his eyes, 
as if she could have read in them his innocent deceit. 

Then, tell me again about him, dear father,” said Bertha. 
“ Many times again ! His face is benevolent, kind, and' 
tender. Honest and true, I am sure it is. The manly heart 
' that tries to cloak all favors with a show of roughness and 
unwillingness, beats in its every look and glance.” 

“ And makes it noble,” added Caleb, in his quiet des 
peration. 

“ And makes it noble ! ” cried the Blind Girl. “ He is 
older than May, father.” 

“ Ye-es,” said Caleb, reluctantly. “ He’s a little older 
than May. But that don’t signify.” 

“ Oh father, yes ! To be his patient companion in in- 
firmity and age ; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his 
constant friend in suffering and sorrow ; to know no weariness 
in working for his sake ; to watch him, tend him, sit beside 
his bed and talk to him awake, and pray for him asleep ; what 
privileges these would be ! What opportunities for proving 
all her truth and devotion to him ! Would she do all this, 
dear father 

“No doubt of it,” said Caleb. 

“ I love her, father ; I can love her from my soul ! ” ex- 
claimed the Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her poor 
blind face on Caleb’s shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he 
was almost sorry to have brought that tearful happiness upon 
her. 

In the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp com- 
motion at John Peerybingle’s, for, little Mrs. Peerybingle nat- 
urally couldn’t think of going anywhere without the Baby ; 
and to get the Baby under weigh, took time. Not that there 
was much of the Baby, speaking of it as a thing of weight and 
measure, but, there was a vast deal to do about and about it, 
and it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance, when 
the Baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain point of 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


192 

dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that another 
touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tip-top 
Baby challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished 
in a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed ; where he simmered 
(so to speak) between two blankets for the best part of an 
hour. From this state of inaction he was then recalled, shin- 
ing very much and roaring violently, to partake of — well ? I 
would rather . say, if you’ll permit me to speak generally — 
of a slight repast. After which, he went to sleep again. 
Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this interval, to make her- 
self as smart in a small way as ever you saw anybody in all 
your life ; and, during the same short truce. Miss Slowboy in- 
sinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and 
ingenious, that it had no connection with herself, or anything 
else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog’s-eared, inde- 
pendent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least re- 
gard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive 
again, was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle 
and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-colored mantle for its body, 
and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head ; and so in course 
of time they all three got down to the door, where the old 
horse had already taken more than the full value of his day’s 
toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing up the road with his 
impatient aufbgraphs ; and whence Boxer might be dimly 
seen in the remote perspective, standing looking back, and 
tempting him to come on without orders. 

As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs. 
Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, if you 
think that was necessary. Before you could have seen him 
lift her from the ground, there she was in her place, fresh and 
rosy, saying, “ John ! How can you ! Think of Tilly ! ” 

If I might be allowed to mention a young lady’s legs, on 
any terms, I would observe of Miss Slowboy’s that there was 
a fatality about them which rendered them singularly liable to 
be grazed ; and that she never effected the smallest ascent or 
descent, without recording the circumstance upon them with 
a notch, as Robinson Crusoe marked the days upon his 
wooden calendar. But as this might be considered ungenteel, 
I’ll think of it. 

“ John? You've got the basket with the Veal and Ham- 
Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer ? " said Dot. “ If you 
haven't, you must turn round again, this very minute." 

“ You're a nice little article," returned the Carrier, “ to be 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


193 

talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter 
of an hour behind my time.” 

, “ I am sorry for it, John,” said Dot in a great bustle, “but 
I really could not think of going to Bertha’s — I would not do 
it, John, on any account — without the Veal and Ham-Pie and 
things, and the bottles of Beer. Way! ” 

This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn’t 
mind it at all. 

“ Oh do way John 1 ” said Mrs. Peerybingle. “ Please! ” 

“ It’ll be time enough to do that,” returned John, “when 
I begin to leave things behind me. The basket’s here, safe 
enough.” 

“ What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to 
have said so, at once, and save me such a turn ! I declared 
I wouldn’t go to Bertha’s without the Veal and Ham-Pie and 
things, and the bottles of Beer, for any money. Regularly 
once a fortnight ever since we have been married, John, have 
we made our little Pic-nic there. If anything was to go 
wrong with it, I should almost think we were never to be 
lucky again.” 

“ It was a kind thought in the first instance,” said the 
Carrier : “ and I honor you for it, little woman.” 

“ My dear John,” replied Dot, turning very red, “ Don’t 
talk about honoring me. Good Gracious ! ” 

“ By the bye — ” observed the Carrier. “ That old gen- 
tleman,” — 

Again so visibly, and instantly embarrassed ! 

“ He’s an odd fish,” said the Carrier, looking straight along 
the road before them. “ I can’t make him out. I don’t be- 
lieve there’s any harm in him.” 

“ None at all. I’m^I’m sure there’s none at all.” 

“ Yes,” said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face 
by the great earnestness of her manner. “ I am glad you feel 
so certain of it, because it’s a confirmation to me. It’s 
curious that he should have taken in into his head to ask 
leave to go on lodging with us j an’t it } Things come about 
so strangely.” 

“ So very strangely,” she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely 
audible. 

“ However, he’s a good-natured old gentleman,” said John, 
“ and pays as a gentlemen, and I think his word is to be 
relied upon, like a gentleman’s. I had quite a long talk with 
him this morning : he can hear me better already, he says, as 

13 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


194 

he gets more used to my voice. He told me a great deal 
about himself, and I told him a good deal about myself, and 
a rare lot of questions he asked me. I gave him information 
about my having two beats, you know, in my business ; one 
day to the right from our house and back again ; another day 
to the left from our house and back again (for he’s a stranger 
and don’t know the names of places about here); and he 
seemed quite pleased. ‘ Why, then I shall be returning home 
to-night your way,’ he says, * when I thought you’d be coming 
in an exactly opposite direction. That’s capital! I may 
trouble you for another lift perhaps, but I’ll engage not to 
fall so sound asleep again.’ He was sound asleep, surely I — ■ 
Dot ! what are you thinking of ? ” 

“Thinking of, John ? I — I was listening to you.” 

“ Oh ! That’s all right ! ” said the honest Carrier. “ I 
was afraid, from the look of your face, that I had gone ram- 
bling on so long, as to set you thinking about something else. 
I was very near it. I’ll be bound.” 

Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, 
in silence. But, it was not easy to remain silent very long in 
John Peerybingle’s cart, for everybody on the road had some- 
thing to say. Though it might only be “ How are you ! ” and 
indeed it was very often nothing else, still, to give that back 
again in the right spirit of cordiality, required, not merely a 
nod and a smile, but as wholesome an action of the lungs 
withal, as a long-winded Parliamentary speech. Sometimes, 
passengers on foot, or horseback, plodded on a little way be- 
side the cart, for the express purpose of having a chat ; and 
then there was a great deal to be said, on both sides. 

Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recogni- 
tions of, and by, the Carrier, than half-a-dozen Christians 
could have done ! Everybody knew him, all along the road 
—especially the fowls and pigs, who whpn they saw him ap- 
proaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked 
up inquisitively, and that knob of a tail making the most of 
itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote back settle- 
ments, without waiting for the honor of a nearer acquaintance. 
He had business everywhere ; going down all the turnings, 
looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all the cottages, 
dashing into the midst of all the Dame-Schools, fluttering all 
the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats, and trotting 
into the public-houses like a regular customer. Wherever he 
went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry, 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH J95 

Halloa I Here’s Boxer ! ” and out came that somebody 
forthwith, accompanied by at least two or three other some- 
bodies, to give John Peerybingle and his pretty wife, Good 
Day. 

The packages and parcels for the errand cart, were numer- 
ous ; and there were many stoppages to take them in and 
give them out, which were not by any means the worst parts 
of the journey. Some people were so full of expectation 
about their parcels, and other people were so full of wonder 
about their parcels, and other people were so full of inex- 
haustible directions about their parcels, and John had such a 
lively interest in all the parcels, that it was as good as a play. 
Likewise, there were articles to carry, which required to be 
considered and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment 
and disposition of which, councils had to be holden by the 
Carrier and the senders : at which Boxer usually assisted, in 
short fits of the closest attention, and long fits of tearing 
round and round the assembled sages and barking himself 
hoarse. Of all these little incidents, Dot was the amused and 
open-eyed spectatress from her chair in the cart ; and as she 
sat there, looking on — a charming little portrait framed to 
admiration by the tilt — there was no lack of nudgings and 
glancings and whisperings and envyings among the younger 
men. And this delighted John the Carrier, beyond measure; 
for he was proud to have his little wife admired, knowing 
that she didn’t mind it — that, if anything, she rather liked it 
perhaps. 

The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January 
weather ; and was raw and cold. But who cared for such 
trifles? Not Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she 
deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the highest 
point of human joys ; the crowning circumstance of earthly 
hopes. Not the Baby, I’ll be sworn ; for it’s not in Baby 
nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, though its capacity 
is great in both respects, than that blessed young Peerybingle 
was, all the way. 

You couldn’t see very far in the fog, of course ; but you 
could see a great deal 1 It’s astonishing how much you may 
see, in a thicker fog than that, if you will only take the trouble 
to look for it. Why, even to sit watching for the Fairy-rings 
in the fields, and for the patches of hoar-frost still lingering in 
the shade, near hedges and by trees, Vas a pleasant occupa- 
tion ; to make no mention of the unexpected shapes in which 


196 the cricket on the hearth, 

the trees themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided 
into it again. The hedges were tangled and bare, and waved 
a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind ; but, there was 
no discouragement in this. It was agreeable to contemplate ; 
for, it made the fireside warmer in possession, and the summer 
greener in expectancy. The river looked chilly ; but it was 
in motion, and moving at a good pace — which was a great 
point. The canal was rather slow and torpid ; that must be 
admitted. Never mind. It would freeze the sooner when 
the frost set fairly in, and then there would be skating, and 
sliding ; and the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere near 
a wharf, would smoke their rusty iron chimney pipes all day, 
and have a lazy time of it. 

In one place, there was a great mound of weeds or stubble 
burning ; and they watched the fire, so white in the daytime, 
flaring through the fog, with only here and there a dash of 
red in it, until, in consequence as she observed of the smoke 
“ getting up her nose,” Miss Slowboy choked — she could do 
anything of that sort, on the smallest provocation — and woke 
the Baby, who wouldn’t go to sleep again. But, Boxer, who 
was in advance some quarter of a mile or so, had already 
passed the outposts of the town, and gained the comer of the 
street where Caleb and his daughter lived ; and long before 
they had reached the door, he and the Blind Girl were on the 
pavement waiting to receive them. 

Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of 
his own, in his communication with Bertha, which persuade 
me fully that he knew her to be blind. He never sought to 
attract her attention by looking at her, as he often did with 
other people, but touched her invariably. What experience 
he could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs, I don’t 
know. He had^ never lived with a blind master ; nor had 
Mr. Boxer the elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his respecta- 
Ble family on either side, ever been visited with blindness, that 
I am aware of. He may have found it out for himself, per- 
haps, but he had got hold of it somehow ; and therefore he 
had hold of Bertha too, by the skirt, and kept hold, until Mrs. 
Peerybingle and the Baby, and Miss Slowboy, and the basket, 
were all got safely within doors. 

May Fielding was already come ; and so was her mother 
— a little querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face, 
who, in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was 
supposed to be a most transcendent figure ; and who, in con- 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


197 


sequence of having once been better off, or of laboring under 
an impression that she might have been, if something had 
happened which never did happen, and seemed to have never 
been particularly likely to come to pass — ^but it’s all the same 
— was very genteel and patronizing indeed. Gruff andTack- 
leton was also there, doing the agreeable, with the evident 
sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as unquestionably 
in his own element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of 
the Great Pyramid. 

“ May ! My dear old friend ! ” cried Dot, running to meet 
her. “ What a happiness to see you ! ” 

Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as 
she ; and it really was, if you’ll believe me, quite a pleasant 
sight to see them embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste, 
beyond all question. May was very pretty. 

You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, 
how, when it comes into contact and comparison with another 
pretty face, it seems for the moment to be homely and faded, 
and hardly to deserve the high opinion you have had of it. 
Now, this was not at all the case, either with Dot or May ; 
for May’s face set off Dot’s, and Dot’s face set off May’s, so 
naturally and agreeably, that, as John Peerybingle was very 
near saying when he came into the room, they ought to have 
been born sisters — which was the only improvement you could 
have suggested. 

Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful 
to relate, a tart besides — but we don’t mind a little dissipation 
when our brides are in the case ; we don’t get married every 
day — and in addition to these dainties, there were the Veal 
and Ham-Pie, and things,” as Mrs. Peerybingle called them ; 
which were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes, and such 
small deer. When the repast was set forth on the board, 
flanked by Caleb’s, contribution, which was a great wooden 
bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by solemn com- 
pact, from producing any other viands), Tackleton led his in- 
tended mother-in-law to the post of honor. For the better 
gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic old soul 
had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the 
thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves. 
But let us be genteel, or die ! 

Caleb sat next his daughter ; Dot and her old schoolfellow 
were side by side ; the good Carrier took care of the bottom 
of the table. Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


198 

from every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that 
she might have nothing else to knock the Baby’s head 
against. 

As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared 
at her and at the company. The venerable old gentlemen at 
the street door (who were all in full action) showed especial 
interest in the party, pausing occasionally before leaping, as 
if they were listening to the conversation, and then plunging 
wildly over and over, a great many times, without halting for 
breath — as in a frantic state of delight with the whole pro- 
ceedings. 

Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a 
fiendish joy in the contemplation of Tackleton’s discomfiture, 
they had good reason to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn’t get 
on at all ; and the more cheerful his intended bride became 
in Dot’s society, the less he liked it, though he had brought 
them together for that purpose. For he was a regular dog in 
the manger, was Tackleton ; and when they laughed and he 
couldn’t, he took it into his head, immediately, that they must 
be laughing at him. 

“ Ah May ! ” said Dot. “ Dear dear, what changes ! To 
talk of those merry school-days makes one young again.” 

“ Why, you an’t particularly old, at any time ; are you ? ” 
said Tackleton. 

“ Look at my sober plodding husband there,” returned 
Dot. “ He adds twenty years to my age at least. Don’t you, 
John ? ” 

“ Forty,” John replied. 

“ How many ^(?«’ll add to May’s, I am sure I don’t know,” 
said Dot, laughing. “ But she can’t be much less than a 
hundred years of age on her next birthday.” 

“Ha ha!” laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that 
laugh though. And he looked as if he could have twisted 
Dot’s neck, comfortably. 

“Dear dear!” said Dot. “ Only to remember how we 
used to talk, at school, about the husbands we would choose. 
I don’t know how young, and how handsome, and how gay 
and how lively, mine was not to be ! And as to May’s ! — Ah 
dear ! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, when I think 
what silly girls we were.” 

May seemed to know which to do ; for the color flushed 
into her face, and tears stood in her eyes. 

“ Even the very persons themselves — real live young men 


199 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

— ^were fixed on sometimes,” said Dot. “ We little thought 
how things would come about. I never fixed on John I’m 
sure ; I never so much as thought of him, And if I had told 
you, you were ever to be married to Mr. Tackleton, why you’d 
have slapped me. Wouldn’t you. May ? ” 

Though May didn’t say yes, she certainly didn’t say no, 
or express no, by any means. 

Tackleton laughed — quite shouted, he laughed so loud. 
John Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good natured 
and contented manner j but his was a mere whisper of a laugh, 
to Tackleton’s. 

You couldn’t help yourselves, for all that. You couldn’t 
resist us, you see,” said Tackleton. “ Here we are ! Here 
we are ! Where are your gay young bridegrooms now ? ” 

“ Some of them are dead,” said Dot ; “ and some of them 
forgotten. Some of them, if they could stand among us at 
this moment, would not believe we were the same creatures; 
would not believe that what they saw and heard was real, and 
we cou/^ forget them so. No ! they would not believe one 
word of it ! ” 

“ Why, Dot ! ” exclaimed the Carrier. “ Little woman ! ” 
She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she 
stood in need of some recalling to herself, without doubt. 
Her husband’s check was very gentle, for he merely interfered, 
as he supposed, to shield old Tackleton ; but it proved effec- 
tual, for she stopped, and said no more. There was an un- 
common agitation, even in her silence, which the wary Tackle- 
ton, who had brought his half-shut eye to bear upon her, noted 
closely, and remembered to some purpose too. 

May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with 
her eyes cast down, and made no sign of interest in what had 
passed. The good lady her mother now interposed, observ- 
ing, in the first instance, that girls were girls, and bygones 
bygones, and that so long as young people were young and 
thoughtless, they would probably conduct themselves like 
young and thoughtless persons : with two or three other posi- 
tions of a no less sound and incontrovertible character. She 
then remarked, in a devout spirit, that she thanked Heaven 
she had always found in her daughter May, a dutiful and obe- 
dient child ; for which she took no credit to herself, though she 
had every reason to believe it was entirely owing to herself. 
With regard to ?.lr. Tackleton she said. That he was in a 
moral point of view an undeniable individual, and That he 


200 


THB CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


was in an eligible point of view a son-in-law to be desired, no 
one in their senses could doubt. (She was very emphatic 
here.) With regard to the family into which he was so soon 
about, after some solicitation, to be admitted, she believed 
Mr. Tackleton knew that, although reduced in purse, it had 
some pretensions to gentility; and if certain circumstances, 
not wholly unconnected, she would go so far as to say, with 
the Indigo Trade, but to which she would not more particu- 
larly refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps have 
been in possession of wealth. She then remarked that she 
would not allude to the past, and would not mention that her 
daughter had for some time rejected the suit of Mr. Tackleton ; 
and that she would not say a great many other things which 
she did say at great length. Finally, she delivered it as the 
general result of her observation and experience, that those 
marriages in which there was least of what was romantically 
and sillily called love, were always the happiest ; and that she 
anticipated the greatest possible amount of bliss — not raptur- 
ous bliss; but the solid, steady-going article — ^from the ap- 
proaching nuptials. She concluded by informing the company 
that to-morrow was the day she had lived for, expressly ; and 
that when it was over, she would desire nothing better than to 
be packed up and disposed of, in any genteel place of burial. 

As these remarks were quite unanswerable — which is the 
happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the 
purpose — they changed the current of the conversation, and 
diverted the general attention to the Veal and Ham-Pie, the 
cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. In order that the 
bottled beer might not be slighted, John Peerybingle proposed 
To-morrow : the Wedding-Day ; and called upon them to 
drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded on his journey. 

For you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave 
the old horse a bait. He had to go some four or five miles 
farther on ; and when he returned in the evening, he called 
for Dot, and took another rest on his way home. This was 
the order of the day on all the Pic-Nic occasions, and had 
been, ever since their institution. 

There were two persons present, besides the bride and 
bridegroom elect, who did but indifferent honor to the toast. 
One of these was Dot, too flushed and discomposed to adapt 
herself to any small occurrence of the moment ; the other, 
Bertha, who rose up hurriedly, before the rest, and left the 
table. 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


201 


“Good-by! ” said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his 
dreadnought coat. “ I shall be back at the old time. Good- 
by all I ” 

“ Good-by John,” returned Caleb. 

He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the 
same unconscious manner ; for he stood observing Bertha with 
an anxious wondering face, that never altered its expression. 

“ Good-by young shaver ! ” said the jolly Carrier, bending 
down to kiss the child ; which Tilly Slowboy, now intent upon 
her knife and fork, had deposited asleep (and strange to say, 
without damage) in a little cot of Bertha’s furnishing ; “ good- 
by 1 Time will come, I suppose, when turn out into the 
cold, my little friend, and leave your old father to enjoy his 
pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner ; eh ? Where’s 
Dot?” 

“ I’m here John ! ” she said, starting. 

“ Come, come ! ” returned the Carrier, clapping his sound- 
ing hands. “Where’s the pipe ? ” 

“ I quite forgot the pipe, John.” 

Forgot the pipe ! Was such a wonder ever heard of ! 
She ! Forgot the pipe ! 

“ I’ll — I’ll fill it directly. It’s soon done.” 

But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual 
place — the Carrier’s dreadnought pocket — with the little 
pouch, her own work, from which she was used to fill it ; but 
her hand shook so, that she entangled it (and yet her hand 
was small enough to have come out easily, I am sure), and 
bungled terribly. The filling of the pipe and lighting it, those 
little offices in which I have commended her discretion, were 
vilely done, from first to last. During the whole process, 
Tackleton stood looking on maliciously with the half-closed 
eye; which, whenever it met hers — or caught it, for it can 
hardly be said to have ever met another eye : rather being a 
kind of trap to snatch it up — augmented her confusion in a 
most remarkable degree. 

“ Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon I ” said 
John. “ I could have done it better myself, I verily be- 
lieve 1 ” 

With these good-natured words, he strode away, and pres- 
ently was heard, in company with Boxer, and the old horse, 
and the cart, making lively music down the road. What time 
the dreamy Caleb still stood, watching his blind daughter, 
with the same expression on his face. 


.402 


THE CRtCKET OH THE HEARTH. 


Bertha!” said Caleb, softly. ‘‘What has happened? 
How changed you are, my darling, in a few hours — since this 
morning. You silent and dull all day 1 What is it ? Tell 
me!” 

Oh father, father ! ” cried the Blind Girl, bursting into 
tears. “ Oh my hard, hard fate ! ” 

Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered 
her. 

“ But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, 
Bertha ! How good, and how much loved, by many people.” 

“ That strikes me to the heart, dear father ! Always so 
mindful of me ! Always so kind to me ! ” 

Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her. 

“ To be — to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear,” he faltered, 
“ is a great affliction ; but ” 

“I have never felt it ! ” cried the Blind Girl. “I have 
never felt it, in its fulness. Never ! I have sometimes wished 
that I could see you, or could see him — only once, dear father, 
only for one little minute — that I might know what it is I 
treasure up,” she laid her hands upon her breast, “ and hold 
here ! That I might be sure and have it right ! And some- 
times (but then I was a child), I have wept in my prayers at 
night, to think that when your images ascended from my heart 
to Heaven, they might not be the true resemblance of your- 
selves. But I have never had these feelings long. They have 
passed away and left me tranquil and contented.” 

“And they will again,” said Caleb. 

“ But father ! Oh my good, gentle father, bear with me, 
if I am wicked ! said the Blind Girl. “ This is not the sorrow 
that so weighs me down ! ” 

Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes over- 
flow ; she was so earnest and pathetic, but he did not under- 
stand her, yet. 

“ Bring her to me,” said Bertha. “ I cannot hold it closed 
and shut within myself. Bring her to me, father ! ” 

She knew he hesitated, and said, “ May. Bring May ! ” 

May heard the mention of her name, and coming quietly 
towards her, touched her on the arm. The Blind Girl turned 
immediately, and held her by both hands. 

“Look into my face. Dear heart. Sweet heart 1” said 
Bertha. “ Read it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if the 
truth is written on it.” 

“ Dear Bertha, Yes 1 ” 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


203 


The Blind Girl still, upturning the blank sightless face, 
down which the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in 
these words : 

** There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not 
for your good, bright May ! There is not, in my soul, a grate- 
ful recollection stronger than the deep remembrance which is 
stored there, of the many many times when, in the full pride 
of sight and beauty, you have had consideration for Blind 
Bertha, even when we two were children, or when Bertha was 
as much a child as ever blindness can be ! Every blessing on 
your head ! Light upon your happy course ! Not the less, 
my dear May ; ” and she drew towards her, in a closer grasp ; 
“ not the less, my bird, because, to-day, the knowledge that 
you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost to break- 
ing! Father, May, Mary I oh forgive me that it is so,'forthe 
sake of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark 
life : and for the sake of the belief you have in me, when I 
call Heaven to witness that I could not wish him married to 
a wife more worthy of his goodness ! ” 

While speaking, she had released May Fielding’s hands, 
and clasped her garments in an attitude of mingled supplica- 
tion and love. Sinking lower and lower down, as she pro- 
ceeded in her strange confession, she dropped at last at the 
feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds of her 
dress. 

“ Great Power ! ” exclaimed her father, smitten at one 
blow with the truth, “ have I deceived her from her cradle, 
but to break her heart at last I ” 

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, 
busy little Dot — ^for such she was, whatever faults she had, 
and however you may learn to hate her, in good time — it was 
well for all of them, I say, that she was there : or where this 
would have ended, it were hard to tell. But Dot, recovering 
her self-possession, interposed, before May could reply, or 
Caleb say another word. 

“ Come come, dear Bertha ! come away with me ! Give 
her your arm. May. So ! How composed she is, you see, 
already ; and how good it is of her to mind us,” said the 
cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead. “ Come 
away, dear Bertha. Come ! and here’s her good father will 
come with her ; wont you, Caleb ? To — be — sure !” 

Well, well i she was a noble little Dot in such things, and 
it must have been an obdurate nature that could have with* 


#•4 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


stood her influence. When she had got poor Caleb and his 
Bertha away, that they might comfort and console each other, 
as she knew they only could, she presently came bouncing 
back, — the saying is, as fresh as any daisy ; I say fresher — to 
mount guard over that bridling little piece of consequence in 
the cap and gloves, and prevent the dear old creature from 
making discoveries. 

“ So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly,” said she, drawing 
a chair to the fire ; “ and while I have it in my lap, here’s Mrs. 
Fielding, Tilly, will tell me all about the management of Ba- 
bies, and put me right in twenty points where I’m as wrong 
as can be. Won’t you, Mrs. Fielding.? ” 

Not even the Welsh Giant, who according to the popular 
expression, was so “slow” as to perform a fatal surgical 
operation upon himself, in emulation of a juggling-trick 
achieved by his arch-enemy at breakfast-time ; not even he 
fell half so readily into the snare prepared for him, as the old 
lady did into this artful pitfall. The fact of Tackleton hav- 
ing walked out ; and furthermore, of two or three people hav- 
ing been talking together at a distance, for two minutes, leav- 
ing her to her own resources ; was quite enough to have put 
her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that mysterious 
convulsion in the Indigo trade, for four-and-twenty hours. 
But this becoming deference to her experience, on the part of 
the young mother, was so irresistible, that after a short affec- 
tation of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best 
grace in the world ; and sitting bolt upright before^ the wicked 
Dot, she did in half an hour, deliver more infallible domestic 
recipes and precepts, than would (if acted on) have utterly 
destroyed and done up that Young Peerybingle, though he 
had been an Infant Sampson. 

To change the theme. Dot did a little needlework — she 
carried the contents of a whole workbox in her pocket ; how- 
ever she contrived it, I don’t know — then did a little nursing ; 
then a little more needlework ; then had a little whispering 
chat with May, while the old lady dozed ; and so in little bits 
of bustle, which was quite her manner always, found it a very 
short afternoon. Then, as it grew dark, and as it was a 
solemn part of this Institution of the Pic-Nic that she should 
perform all Bertha’s household tasks, she trimmed the fire, 
and swept the hearth, and set the tea-board out, and drew the 
curtain, and lighted a candle. Then she played an air or two 
on a rude kind of harp, which Caleb had contrived for Bertha, 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


205 

and played them very well ; for Nature had made her delicate 
little ear as choice a one for music as it would have been for 
jewels, if she had had any to wear. By this time it was the 
established hour for having tea ; and Tackleton came back 
again, to share the meal, and spend the evening. 

Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and 
Caleb had set down to his afternoon’s work. But he couldn’t 
settle to it, poor fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his 
daughter. It was touching to see him sitting idle on his work- 
ing-stool, regarding her so wistfully, and always saying in his 
face, “ Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her 
heart ! ” 

When it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had noth- 
ing more to do in washing up the cups and saucers ; in a 
word — for I must come to it, and there is no use in putting it 
off — when the time drew nigh for expecting the Carrier’s 
return in every sound of distant wheels, her manner changed 
again, her color came and went, and she was very restless. 
Not as good wives are, when listening for their husbands 
No, no, no. It was another sort of restlessness from that. 

Wheels heard. A horse’s feet. The barking of a dog. 
The gradual approach of all the sounds. The scratching paw 
of Boxer at the door ! 

“ Whose step is that ! ” cried Bertha, starting up. 

“ Whose step ? ” returned the Carrier, standing in the 
portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the 
keen night air. “ Why, mine.” 

“ The other step,’^ said Bertha. “ The man’s tread behind 
you ! ” 

“ She is not to be deceived,” observed the Carrier, laugh- 
ing. “ Come along, sir. You’ll be welcome, never fear ! ” 

He spoke in a loud tone ; and as he spoke, the deaf old 
gentleman entered. 

“ He’s not so much a stranger, that you haven’t s«en him 
once, Caleb,” said the Carrier. “ You’ll give him house-room' 
till we go ? ” 

“ Oh surely John, and take it as an honor.” 

“ He’s the best company on earth, to talk secrets in,” said 
John. “I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries ’em, I 
can tell you. Sit down sir. All friends here, and glad to see 
you ! ” 

When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that 
amply corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he 


2o6 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


added in his natural tone, “ A chair in the chimney-corner, 
and leave to sit quite silent and look pleasantly about him, is 
all he cares for. He’s easily pleased.” 

Bertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb to 
her side, when he had set the chair, and asked him, in a low 
voice, to describe their visitor. When he had done so (truly 
now ; with scrupulous fidelity), she moved, for the first time 
since he had come in, and sighed, and seemed to have no 
further interest concerning him. 

The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was, 
and fonder of his little wife than ever. 

“ A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon ! ” he said, en- 
circling her with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from 
the rest j “ and yet I like her somehow. See yonder. Dot ! ” 
He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think 
she trembled. 

“ He’s — ha ha ha ! — he’s full of admiration for you ! ” 
said the Carrier. “Talked of nothing else, the whole way 
here. Why, he’s a brave old boy. I like him for it ! ” 

“ I wish he had had a better subject, John ; ” she said, 
with an uneasy glance about the room. At Tackleton espe- 
cially. 

“ A better subject ! ” cried the jovial John. “ There’s no 
such thing. Come, off with the great-coat, off with the thick 
shawl, off with the heavy wrappers ! and a cosy half-hour by 
the fire ! My humble service. Mistress. A game at cribbage, 
you and I ? That’s hearty. The cards and board. Dot. And 
a glass of beer here, if there’s any left, small wife ! ” 

His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accept- 
ing it with gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon 
the game. At first, the Carrier looked about him sometimes, 
with a smile, or now and then called Dot to peep over his 
shoulder at his hand, and advise him on some knotty point. 
But his adversary being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to 
an occasional weakness in respect of pegging more than she 
was entitled to, required such vigilance on his part, as left 
him neither eyes nor ears to spare. Thus, his whole atten- 
tion gradually became absorbed upon the cards ; and he 
thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder re- 
stored him to a consciousness of Tackleton. 

“I am sorry to disturb you — ^but a word, directly.” 

“ I’m going to deal,” returned the Carrier. “ It’s a crisis.'* 
“ It is,” said Tackleton. “ Come here, man 1 ” 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


207 


There was that in his pale face which made the other 
rise immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter 
was. 

“ Hush ! John Peerybingle,” said Tackleton. “ I am 
sorry for this. I arri indeed. I have been afraid of it. I 
have suspected it from the first.” 

“ What is it ? ” asked the Carrier, with a frightened aspect. 

Hush ! I’ll show you, if you’ll come with me.” 

The Carrier accompanied him, without another word. 
They went across a yard, where the stars were shining, and 
by a little side-door, into Tackleton’s own counting-house, 
where there was a glass window commanding the ware-room, 
which was closed for the night. There was no light in the 
counting-house itself, but there were lamps in the long narrow 
ware-room ; and consequently the window was bright. 

“ A moment ! ” said Tackleton. “ Can you bear to look 
through that window, do you think ? ” 

“ Why not } ” returned the Carrier. 

“ A moment more,” said Tackleton. “ Don’t commit any 
violence. It’s of no use. It’s dangerous too. You’re a 
strong-made man ; and you might do murder before you know 
it.” 

The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as 
if he had been struck. In one stride he was at the window, 
and he saw — 

Oh Shadow on the Hearth ! O truthful Cricket ! Oh 
perfidious wife ! 

He saw her, with the old man — old no longer, but erect 
and gallant — bearing in his hand the false white hair that had 
won his way into their desolate and miserable home. He 
saw her listening to him, as he bent his head to whisper in 
her ear ; and suffering him to clasp her round the waist, as 
^ they moved slowly down the long wooden gallery towards the 
door by which they had entered it. He saw them stop, and 
saw her turn — to have the face, the face he loved so, so pre- 
sented to his view ! — and saw her, with her own hands, adjust 
the lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at his unsuspi- 
cious nature ! 

He clenched his strong right-hand at first, as if he would 
have beaten down a lion. But opening it immediately again, 
he spread it out before the eyes of Tackleton (for he was ten- 
der of her, even then), and so, as they passed out, fell down 
upon a desk, and was as weak as any infant. 


2 ©8 the cricket on the hearth. 

He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse 
and parcels, when she came into the room, prepared for go- 
ing home. 

“Now John, dear! ' Good-night May! Good-night Ber- 
tha ! 

Could she kiss them ? Could she be blithe and cheerful 
in her parting ? Could she venture to reveal her face to them 
without a blush ? Yes. Tackleton observed her closely, and 
she did all this. 

Tilly was hushing the Baby, and she crossed and re-crossed 
Tackleton, a dozen times, repeating drowsily : 

“ Did the ^.nowledge that it was to be its wifes, then, 
wring its hearts almost to breaking ; and did its fathers de- 
ceive it from its cradles but to break its hearts at last ! ” 

“ Now Tilly, give me the Baby ! Good-night, Mr. Tackle- 
ton. Where’s John, for goodness’ sake ? ” 

“He’s going to walk, beside the horse’s head,” said 
Tackleton ; who helped her to her seat. 

“ My dear John. Walk ? To-night ? ” 

The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign iff 
the affirmative ; and the false stranger and thb little nurse 
being in their places, the old horse moved off. Boxer, the 
unconscious Boxer, running on before, running back, running 
round and round the cart, and barking as triumphantly and 
merrily as ever. 

When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and 
her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside his 
daughter ; anxious and remorseful at the core ; and still say- 
ing in his wistful contemplation of her, “ Have I deceived her 
from her cradle, but to break her heart at last ! ” 

The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby, had all 
stopped, and run down, long ago. In the faint light and 
silence, the imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rocking- 
horses with distended eyes and nostrils, the old gentlemen at 
the street-doors, standing half doubled up upon their failing 
knees and ankles, the wry-faced nutcrackers, the very Beasts 
upon their way into the Ark, in twos, like a Boarding School 
out walking, might have been imagined to be stricken motion- 
less with fantastic wonder, at Dot being false, or Tackleton 
beloved, under any combination of circumstances. 


X 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


209 


The Dutch clock in the comer struck Ten, when the Car- 
rier sat down by his fireside. So troubled and grief-worn, 
that he seemed to scare the Cuckoo, who, having cut his ten 
melodious announcements as short as possible, plunged back 
into the Moorish Palace again, and clapped his little door be- 
hind him, as if the unwonted spectacle were too much for his 
feelings. 

If the little Ha)miaker had been armed with the sharpest 
of scythes, and had cut at every stroke into the Carrier's 
heart, he never could have gashed and wounded it, as Dot 
had done. 

It was a heart so full of love for her ; so bound up and 
held together by innumerable threads of winning remem- 
brance, spun from the daily workings of her many qualities of 
endearments ; it was a heart in which she had enshrined her- 
self so gently and so closely ; a heart so single and so earnest 
in its Truth, so strong in right, so weak in wrong ; that it 
could cherish neither passion nor revenge at first, and had 
only room to hold the broken image of its Idol. 

But, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his 
hearth, now cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began 
to rise within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the night. 
The Stranger was beneath his outraged roof. Three steps 
would take him to his chamber-door. One blow would beat 
it in. “ You might do murder before you know it,’* Tackleton 
had said. How could it be murder, if he gave the villain time 
to grapple with him hand to hand ! He was the younger man. 

It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his 
mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to some aveng- 
ing act, that should change the cheerful house into a haunted 
place which lonely travellers would dread to pass by night ; 
and where the timid would see shadows struggling in the 
ruined windows when the moon was dim, and hear wild noises 
in the stormy weather. 

He was the younger man ! Yes, yes ; some lover who had 
won the heart that had never touched. Some lover of her 
early choice, of whom she had thought and dreamed, for whom 


110 


THE CRICKET OH THE HEARTH, 


she had pined and pined, when he had fancied her so happy 
by his side. O agony to think of it I 

She had been above stairs with the Baby, getting it to bed. 
As he sat brooding on the hearth, she came close beside him, 
without his knowledge — in the turning of the rack of his great 
misery, he lost all other sounds^ — and put her little stool at 
his feet. He only knew it, when he felt her hand upon his 
own, and saw her looking up into his face. 

With wonder? No. It was his first impression, and he 
was fain to look at her again, to set it right. No, not with 
wonder. With an eager and inquiring look ; but not with won- 
der. At first it was alarmed and serious ; then, it changed 
into a strange, wild, dreadful smile of recognition of his 
thoughts ; then, there was nothing but her clasped hands on 
her brow, and her bent head, and falling hair. 

Though the power of Omnipotence had been his to wield 
at that moment, he had too much of its diviner property of 
Mercy in his breast to have turned one feather’s weight of it 
against her. But he could not bear to see her crouching 
down upon the little seat where he had often looked on her, 
with love and pride, so innocent and gay ; and, when she rose 
and left him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to have 
the vacant place beside him rather than her so long cherished 
presence. This in itself was anguish keener than all, remind- 
ing him how desolate he was become, and how the great bond 
of his life was rent asunder. 

The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could 
have better borne to see her lying prematurely dead before 
him with their little child upon her breast, the higher and the 
stronger rose his wrath against his enemy. He looked about 
him for a weapon. 

There was a gun, hanging on the wall. He took it down, 
and moved a pace or two towards the door of the perfidious 
Stranger’s room. He knew the gun was loaded. Some 
shadowy idea that it was just to' shoot this man like a wild 
beast, seized him, and dilated in his mind until it grew into a 
monstrous demon in complete possession of him, casting out 
all milder thoughts and setting up its undivided empire. 

That phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder thoughts, 
but artfully transforming them. Changing them into scourges 
to drive him on. Turning water into blood, love into hate, 
gentleness into blind ferocity. Her image, sorrowing, hum- 
bled, but still pleading to his tenderness and mercy with re- 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, 


2 II 


sistless power, never left his mind ; but, staying there, it urged 
him to the door ; raised the weapon to his shoulder ; fitted 
and nerved his finger to the trigger ; and cried “ Kill him 1 
In his bed ! ’’ 

He reversed the gun to beat the stock upon the door ; he 
already held it lifted in the air ; some indistinct design was 
in his thoughts of calling out to him to fly, for God’s sake, by 
the window — 

When, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole 
chimney with a glow of light ; and the Cricket on the Hearth 
began to Chirp ! 

No sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even 
hers, could so have moved and softened him. The artless 
words in which she had told him of her love for this same 
Cricket, were once more freshly spoken ; her trembling, ear- 
nest manner at the moment, was again before him ; her pleas- 
ant voice — O what a voice it was, for making household music 
at the fireside of an honest man ! — thrilled through and 
through his better nature, and awoke it into life and action. 

He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his 
sleep, awakened from a frightful dream : and put the gun 
aside. Clasping his hands before his face, he then sat down 
again beside the fire, and found relief in tears. 

The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and 
stood in Fairy shape before him. 

“ ‘ I love it,’ ” said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he well 
remembered, “ ‘for the many times I have heard it, and the 
many thoughts its harmless music has given me.’ ” 

“ She said so ! ” cried the Carrier. “ True ! ” 

“‘This has been a happy home, John : and I love the 
Cricket for its sake ! ’ ” 

“ It has been. Heaven knows,” returned the Carrier. 
“ She made it happy, always, — until now.” 

“ So gracefully sweet-tempered ; so domestic, joyful, busy, 
and light-hearted ! ” said the Voice. 

“ Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did,” re- 
turned the Carrier. 

The Voice, correcting him, said “ do.” 

The Carrier repeated “ as I did.” But not firmly. His 
faltering tongue resisted his control, and would speak in its 
own way, for itself and him. 

The Figure in an attitude of invocation, raised its head 
and said : 


212 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


** Upon your own hearth ” — 

“ The hearth she has blighted,” interposed the Carrier. 

“ The hearth she has — how often ! — blessed and bright- 
ened,” said the Cricket ; “ the hearth which, but for her, were 
only a few stones and bricks and rusty bars, but which has 
been, through her, the Altar of your Home • on which you 
have nightly sacrificed some petty passion, selfishness, or care, 
and offered up the homage of a tranquil mind, a trusting na- 
ture, and an overflowing heart ; so that the smoke from this 
poor chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance than 
the richest incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in 
all the gaudy temples of this world ! — Upon your own hearth ; 
in its quiet sanctuary j surrounded by its gentle influences 
and associations ; hear her ! Hear me ! Hear everything 
that speaks the language of your hearth and home ! ” 

“ And pleads for her ? ” inquired the Carrier. 

“ All things that speak the language of your hearth and 
home, must plead for her ! ” returned the Cricket. “ For 
they speak the truth.” 

And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, con- 
tinued to sit meditating in his chair, the Presence stood be- 
side him, suggesting his reflections by its power, and present- 
ing them before him, as in a glass or picture. It was not a 
solitary Presence. From the hearthstone, from the chimney, 
from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle ; from the 
floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs : from the cart 
without, and the cupboard within, and the household imple- 
ments ; from everything and every place with which she had 
* ever been familiar, and with which she had ever entwined one 
recollection of herself in her unhappy husband’s mind ; Fairies 
came trooping forth. Not to stand beside him as the Cricket 
did, but to busy and bestir themselves. To do all honor to 
her image. To pull him by the skirts, and point to it when it 
appeared. To cluster round it, and embrace it, and strew 
flowers for it to tread on. To try to crown its fair head with 
their tiny hands. To show that they were fond of it and 
loved it ; and that there was not one ugly, wicked, or accusa- 
tory creature to claim knowledge of it — none but their playful 
and approving selves. 

His thoughts were constant to her image. It was always 
there. 

She sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to 
herself. Such a blithe, thriving, steady little Dot 1 The fairy 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


213 


figures turned upon him all at once, by one consent, with one 
prodigious congentrated stare, and seemed to say “ Is this 
the light wife you are mourning for ! ” 

There were sounds of gayety outside, musical instruments, 
and noisy tongues, and laughter. A crowd of young merry- 
makers came pouring in, among whom were May Fielding 
and a score of pretty girls. Dot was the fairest of them all ; 
as young as any of them too. They came to summon her to 
join their party. It was a dance. If ever little foot were 
made for dancing, hers was, surely. But she laughed, and 
shook her head, and pointed to her cookery on the fire, and 
her table ready spread : with an exulting defiance that 
rendered her more charming than she was before. And so 
she merrily dismissed them, nodding to her would-be partners, 
one by one, as they passed, but with a comical indifference, 
enough to make them go and drown themselves immediately 
if they were her admirers — and they must have been so, more 
or less j they couldn’t help it. And yet indifference was not 
her character. O no ! For presently, there came a certain 
Carrier to the door j and bless her what a welcome she 
bestowed upon him ! - 

Again the staring^figures turned upon him all at once, and 
seemed to say “ Is this the wife who has forsaken you ! ” 

A shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture ; call it what 
you will. A^ great shadow of the Stranger, as he first stood 
underneath their' roof ; covering its surface, and bloating out 
all other objects. But the nimble Fairies worked like bees 
to clear it off again. And Dot again was there. . Still bright 
and beautiful. 

Rowing her little Baby in its cradle, singing to it softly, 
and resting her head upon a shoulder which had its counter- 
part in the musing figure by which the Fairy Cricket stood. 

The night — I mean the real night : not going by Fairy 
clocks — was wearing now ; and in this stage of the Carrier’s 
thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone fcightly in the sky. 
Perhaps some calm and quiet light had risen also, in his 
mind ; and he could think more soberly of what had hap- 
pened. 

Although the shadow of, the Stranger fell at intervals upon 
the glass — always distinct, and big, and thoroughly defined — 
it never fell so darkly as at first. Whenever it appeared, the 
Fairies uttered a general cry of consternation, and plied their 
little arms and legs, with inconceivable activity, to rub it out. 


214 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


And whenever they got at Dot again, and showed her to him 
once more, bright and beautiful, they cheered in the most 
inspiring manner. 

They never showed her, otherwise than beautiful and 
bright; for they were Households Spirits to whom falsehood 
is annihilation ; and being so, what Dot was there for them, 
but the one active, beaming, pleasant little creature who had 
been the light and sun of the Carrier’s Home ! 

The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed 
her, with the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old 
matrons, and affecting to be wondrous old and matronly her- 
self, and leaning in a staid, demure old way upon her 
husband’s arm, attempting — she ! such a bud of a little 
woman — to convey the idea of having abjured the vanities of 
the world in general, and of being the sort of person to whom 
it was no novelty at all to be a mother ; yet in the same 
breath, they showed her, laughing at the Carrier for being 
awkward, and pulling up his shirt-collar to make him smart, 
and mincing merrily about that very room to teach him how 
to dance ! 

They turned, and stared immensely at him when they 
showed her with the Blind Girl ; for/ though she carried 
cheerfulness and animation with her wheresoever she went, 
she bore those influences into Caleb Plummer’s home, heaped 
up and running over. The Blind Girl’s love for her, and 
trust in her, and gratitude to her ; her own good busy way of 
setting Bertha’s thanks aside ; her dexterous little arts for 
filling up each moment of the visit in doing something useful 
to the house, and really working hard while feigning to make 
holiday ; her bountiful provision of those standing dfficacies, 
the Veal and Ham-pie and the bottles of Beer ; her radiant 
little face arriving at the door, and taking leave ; the wonder- 
ful expression in her whole self, from her neat foot to the 
crown of her head, of being a part of the establishment — a 
something necessary to it, which it couldn’t be without ; all 
this the Fairies revelled in, and loved her for. And once 
again they looked upon him all at once, appealingly, and 
seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her dress 
and fondled her, “Is this the wife who has betrayed your 
confidence ! ” 

More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful 
night, they showed her to him sitting on her favorite seat, 
with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, her fall- 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


2IS 

ing hair. As he had seen her last. And when they found 
her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him, but 
gathered close round her, and comforted and kissed her, and 
pressed on one another to show sympathy and kindness to 
her, and forgot him altogether. 

Thus the night passed. The moon went down ; the stars 
grew pale ; the cold day broke ; the sun rose. The Carrier 
still sat, musing, in the chimney corner. He had sat there, 
with his head upon his hands, all night. All night the faith- 
ful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth. 
All night he had listened to its voice. All night the house- 
hold Fairies had been busy with him. All night she had been 
amiable and blameless in the glass, except when that one 
shadow fell upon it. 

He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and 
dressed himself. He couldn’t go about his customary cheerful 
avocations — he wanted Spirit for them — but it mattered the 
less, that it was Tackleton’s wedding-day, and he had arranged 
to make his rounds by proxy. He thought to have gone 
merrily to church with Dot. But such plans were at an end. 
It was their own wedding-day too. Ah I how little he had 
looked for such a close to such a year 1 

The Carrier had expected that Tackleton would pay him 
an early visit ; and he was right. He had not walked to and 
fro before his own door, many minutes, when he saw the Toy- 
merchant coming in his chaise along the road. As the chaise 
drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton was dressed out 
sprucely for his marriage, and that he had decorated his 
horse’s head with flowers and favors. 

The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than 
Tackleton, whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably ex- 
pressive than ever. But the Carrier took little heed of this. 
His thoughts had other occupation. 

“John Peerybingle ! ” said Tackleton, with an air of con- 
dolence. “ My good fellow, how do you find yourself this 
morning ? ” 

“I have had -but a poor night. Master Tackleton,’* rC' 
turned the Carrier shaking his head : “ for I have been a 
good deal disturbed in my mind. But it’s over now ! Can 
you spare me half an hour or so, for some private talk? ” 

“I came on purpose,” returned Tackleton, alighting. 

“ Never mind the horse. He’ll stand quiet enough, with 
the reins over this post, if you’ll give him a mouthful of hay.^' 


2i6 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


The Carrier having brought it from his stable, and set it 
before him, they turned into the house. 

You are not married before noon ? ” he said, “ I think ? ” 

“ No,” answered Tackleton. “ Plenty of time. Plenty of 
time.” 

When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping 
at the Stranger’s door ; which was only removed from it by a 
few steps. One of her very red eyes (for Tilly had been cry- 
ing all night long, because her mistress cried) was at the 
keyhole ; and she was knocking very loud ; and seemed 
frightened. 

“ If you please I can’t make nobody hear,” said Tilly, 
looking round. ^‘T hope nobody an’t gone and been and 
died if you please! ” 

This philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasized with 
various new raps and kicks at the door ; which led to no result 
whatever. 

“ Shall I go ? ” said Tackleton. “ It’s curious.” 

The Carrier who had turned his face from the door, 
signed to him to go if he would. 

So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy’s relief; and he too 
kicked and knocked ; and he too failed to get the least reply. 
But he thought of trying the handle of the door; and as it 
opened easily, he peeped in, looked in, went in, and soon 
came running out again. 

“John Peerybingle,” said Tackleton, in his ear. “ I hope 
there has been nothing— nothing rash in the night ” 

The Carrier turned upon him quickly. 

“ Because he’s gone ! ” said Tackleton ; “ and the window’s 
open. I don’t see any marks — to be sure it’s almost on a 
level with the garden : but I was afraid there might have been 
some — some scuffle. Eh ? ” 

He nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether ; he looked 
at' him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and his 
whole person, a sharp twist. As if he would have screwed 
the truth out of him. 

“Makeyoiirself easy,” said the Carrier. “He went into 
that room last night, without harm in word or deed from me, 
and no one has entered it since. He is away of his own free 
will. I’d go out gladly at that door, and beg'tny bread from 
house to house, for life, if I could so change the past that he 
had never come. But he has come and gone. And I have 
done with him P* 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


217 

‘*0h! — ^Well, I think he has got off pretty easy,” said 
Tackle ton, taking a chair. 

The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, 
and shaded his face with his hand, for some little time, before 
proceeding. 

“ You showed me last night,” he said at length, ** my wife ; 
my wife that I love ; secretly — ” 

“ And tenderly,” insinuated Tackleton. 

“ Conniving at that man’s disguise, and giving him oppor- 
tunities of meeting her alone. I think there’s no sight I 
wouldn’t have rather seen than that. I think there’s no man 
in the world I wouldn’t have rather had to show it me.” 

“ I confess to having had my suspicions always,” said 
Tackleton. “ And that has made me objectionable here I 
know.” 

“ But as you did show it me,” pursued the Carrier, not 
minding him ; “ and as you saw her, my wife, my wife that I 
love ” — his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier and firmer 
as he repeated these words : evidently in pursuance of a 
steadfast purpose — “ as you saw her at this disadvantage, it 
is right and just that you should also see with my eyes, and 
look into my breast, and know what my mind is, upon the 
subject. For it’s settled,” said the Carrier, regarding him 
attentively. ‘‘ And nothing can shake it now.” 

Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about 
its being necessary to vindicate something or other ; but he 
was overawed by the manner of his companion. Plain and 
unpolished as it was, it had a something dignified and noble 
in it, which nothing but the soul of generous honor dwelling 
in the man could have imparted. 

“ I am a plain, rough man,” pursued the Carrier, “ with 
very little to recommend me. I am not a clever man, as you 
very well know. I am not a young man. I love my little 
Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a child, in her 
father’s house ; because I knew how precious shC was • because 
she had been- my life, for years and years. There’s many men 
I can’t compare with, who never could have loved my little 
Dot like me, I think I ” 

He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with 
his foot, before resuming. 

“ I often thought that though I wasn’t good enough for 
her, I should make her a kind husband, and perhajfs know 
her value better than another ; and in this way I reconciled 


2i8 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


it to myself, and came to think it might be possible that we 
should be married. And in the end it came about, and we 
were married.” 

*‘Hah!” said Tackleton, with a significant shake of the 
head. 

“ I had studied myself ; I had had experience of myself ; 
I knew how much I loved her, and how happy I should be,” 
pursued the Carrier. “ But I had not — I feel it now — suffi- 
ciently considered her.” 

‘‘ To be sure,” said Tackleton. - “ Giddiness, frivolity, fickle- 
ness, love of admiration ! Not considered ! All left out of 
sight ! Hah ! ” 

“ You had best not interrupt me,” said the Carrier, with 
some sternness, “ till you understand me j and you’re wide of 
doing so. If, yesterday, I’d have struck that man down at a 
blow, who dared to breathe a word against her, to-day I’d set 
my foot upoh his face, if he was my brother ! ” 

The Toy-merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He 
went on in a softer tone : 

“Did I consider,” said the Carrier, “that I took her — at 
her age, and with her beauty — from her young companions, 
and the many scenes of which she was the ornament, in which 
she was the brightest little star that ever shown, to shut her 
up from day to day in my dull house, and keep my tedious 
company? Did I consider how little suited I was to her 
sprightly humor, and how wearisome a plodding man like me 
must be, to one of her quick spirit ? Did I consider that it 
was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved her, when 
everybody must, who knew her ? Never. I took advantage 
of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition ; and I mar- 
ried her. I wish I never had ! For her sake ; not for mine ! ” 

The Toy-merchant gazed at him, without winking. Even 
the half-shut eye was open now. 

“Heaven bless her! ” said the Carrier, “for the cheerful 
constancy with which she tried to keep the knowledge of this 
from me ! And Heaven help me, that, in my slow mind, I 
have not found it out before 1 Poor child I Poor Dot ! 1 
not to find it out, who have seen her eyes fill with tears, when 
such a marriage as our own was spoken of ! I, who have seen 
the secret trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never 
suspected it till last night I Poor girl I That I could ever 
hope she would be fond of me! That I could ever believe 
she was 1 ” 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


219 

** She made a show of it,” said Tackleton. “ She made 
such a show of it, that to tell you the truth it was the origin 
of my misgivings.” 

And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who 
certainly made no sort of show of being fond of him. 

“ She has tried,” said the poor Carrier, with greater emo- 
tion than he had exhibited yet ; “ I only now begin to know 
how hard she has tried, to be my dutiful and zealous wife. 
How good she has been ; how much she has done ; how brave 
and strong a heart she has ; let the happiness I have known 
under this roof bear witness ! It will be some help and com- 
fort to me, when I am here alone.” 

‘‘Here alone?” said Tackleton. “Oh I Then you do 
mean to take some notice of this ? ” 

“ I mean,” returned the Carrier, “ to do her the greatest 
kindness, and make her the best reparation, in my power. I 
can release her from the daily pain of an unequal marriage, 
and the struggle to conceal it. She shall be as free as I can 
render her.” 

“ Make reparation ! ” exclaimed Tackleton, twisting and 
turning his great ears with his hands. “ There must be some- 
thing wrong here. You didn’t say that, of course.” 

The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toy-mer- 
chant, and shook him like a reed. 

“ Listen to me ! ” he said. “ And take care that you hear 
me right. Listen to me. Do I speak plainly ? ” 

“ Very plainly indeed,” answered Tackleton. 

“ As if I meant it ? ” 

“Very much as if you meant it.” 

“ I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night,” exclaimed 
the Carrier. “On the spot where she has often sat beside 
me, with her sweet face looking into mine. I called up her 
whole life, day by day. I had her dear self, in its every pas- 
sage, in review before me. And upon my soul she is innocent, 
if there is One to judge the innocent and guilty ! ” 

Staunch Cricket on the Hearth ! Loyal household Fairies ! 

“ Passion and distrust have left me ! ” said the Carrier ; 
“ and nothing but my grief remains. In an unhappy moment 
some old lover, better suited to her tastes and years than I ; 
forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her will ; returned. In an 
unhappy moment, taken by surprise, and wanting time to think 
of what she did, she made herself a party to his treachery, by 
concealing it. Last night she saw him, in the interview we 
10 


230 


THE CRICKET OH THE HEARTH 


witnessed. It was wrong. But otherwise than this she is 
innocent if there is truth on earth 1 ” 

“ If that is your opinion ” — Tackleton began. 

“ So, let her go ! ” pursued the Carrier. “ Go, with my 
blessing for the many happy hours she has given me, and my 
forgiveness for any pang she has caused me. Let her go, and 
have the peace of mind I wish her ! She’ll never hate me. 
She’ll learn to like me better, when I’m not a drag upon her, 
and she wears the chain I have riveted, more lightly. This is 
the day on which I took her, with so little thought for her 
enjoyment, from her home. To-day she shall return to it, 
and I will trouble her no more. Her father and mother will 
be here to-day — we had made a little plan for keeping it to- 
gether — and they shall take her home. I can trust her, there, 
or anywhere. She leaves me without blame, and she will live 
so I am sure. If I should die — I may perhaps while she is 
still young ; I have lost some courage in a few hours — she’ll 
find that I remembered her, and loved her to the last ! This 
is the end of what you showed me. Now, it’s over ! ” 

“ O no, John, not over. Do not say it’s over yet ! Not 
quite yet. I have heard your noble words. I could not steal 
away, pretending to be ignorant of what has affected me with 
such deep gratitude. Do not say it’s over, ’till the clock has 
struck again ! ” 

She had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had remained 
there. She never looked at Tackleton, but fixed her eyes 
upon her husband. But she kept away from him, setting as 
wide a space as possible between them ; and though she 
spoke with most impassioned earnestness, she went no nearer 
to him even then. How different in this from her old self ! 

“No hand can make the clock which will strike again for 
me the hours that are gone,” replied the Carrier, with a faint 
smile. “ But let it be so, if you will, my dear. It will strike 
soon. It’s of little matter what we say. I’d try to please you 
in a harder case than that.” 

“ Well ! ” muttered Tackleton. “ I must be off, for when 
the clock strikes again, it’ll be necessary for me to be upon 
my way to church. Good-morning, John Peerybingle. I’m 
sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of your company. Sorry 
for the loss, and the occasion of it too ! ” 

“ I have spoken plainly ? ” said the Carrier, accompanying 
him to the door. 

quite I ” 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


32X 


“ And you’ll remember what I have said ? ” 

“Why, if you compel me to make the observation,” said 
Tackleton, previously taking the precaution of getting into his 
chaise ; “ I must say that it was so very unexpected, that I’m 
far from being likely to forget it.” 

“ The better for us both,” returned the Carrier. “ Good- 
by. I give you joy ! ” 

“ I wish I could give it to you” said Tackleton. “ As I 
can’t ; thank’ee. Between ourselves, (as I told you before, 
eh ?) I don’t much think I shall have the less joy in my 
married life, because May hasn’t been too officious about me,, 
and too demonstrative. Good-by ! Take care of yourself.” 

The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller 
in the distance than his horse’s flowers and favors near at 
hand ; and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, 
broken man, among some neighboring elms ; unwilling to 
return until the clock was on the eve of striking. 

His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but 
often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he 
was, how excellent he was ! and once or twice she laughed ; 
so heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all 
the time), that Tilly was quite horrified. 

“ Ow if you please don’t ! ” said Tilly. . “ It’s enough to 
dead and bury the Baby, so it is if you please.” 

“Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, Tilly,” 
inquired her mistress, drying her eyes; “when I can’t live 
here, and have gone to my old home .? ” 

“ Ow if you please don’t ! ” cried Tilly, throwing back her 
head, and bursting out into a howl — she looked at the rnoment 
uncommonly like Boxer ; “ Ow if you please don’t ! Ow, 
what has everybody gone and been and done with everybody, 
making everybody else so wretched ! Ow-w-w-w ! ” ' 

The soft-hearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into 
such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous from ’its long 
suppression, that she must infallibly have awakened the Baby, 
and frightened him into something serious (probably convul- 
sions), if her eyes had not encountered Caleb. Plummer, lead- 
ing in his daughter. This spectacle restoring her to a. sense 
of the proprieties, she stood for some few moments silent, 
with her mouth wide open ; and then, posting off to the bed 
on which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird. Saint Vitus 
manner on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her 
face and head among the bedclothes, apparently deriving 
much relief from those extraordinary operations. 


122 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


“ Mary I ” said Bertha. “ Not at the marriage ! 

“ I told her you would not be there mum,” whispered 
Caleb. “ I heard as much last night. But bless you,” said 
the little man, taking her tenderly by both hands, “ I don’t 
care for what they say. /don’t believe them. There an’t 
much of me, but that little should be torn to pieces sooner 
than I’d trust a word against you ! ” 

He put his arms about her and hugged her, as a child 
might have hugged one of his own dolls. 

“ Bertha couldn’t stay at home this morning,” said Caleb. 
“ She was afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn’t 
trust herself to be so near them on their wedding-day. So we 
started in good time, and came here. I have been thinking 
of what I have done,” said Caleb, after a moment’s pause ; 
“ I have been blaming myself till I hardly knew what to do or 
where to turn, for the distress of mind I have caused her ; and 
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d better, if you’ll stay with 
me, mum, the while, tell her the truth. You’ll stay with me 
the while ? ” he inquired, trembling from head to foot. “ I 
don’t know what effect it may have upon her ; I don’t know 
what she’ll think of me ; I don’t know that she’ll ever care 
for her poor father afterwards. But it’s best for her that she 
should be undeceived, and I must bear the consequences as I 
deserve 1 ” 

“ Mary,” said Bertha, “where is your hand ! Ah ! Here 
it is : here it is ! ” pressing it to her lips, with a smile, and 
drawing it through her arm. “ I heard them speaking softly 
among themselves, last night, of some blame against you. 
They were wrong.” 

The Carrier’s Wife was silent. Caleb answered for her. 

“ They were wrong,” he said. 

“ I knew it ! ” cried Bertha, proudly. “ I told them so. 
I scorned to hear a word ! Blame her with justice ! ” she 
pressed her hand between her own, and the soft cheek 
against her face. “ No ! I am not so blind as that.” 

Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained 
upon the other : holding her hand. 

“ I know you all,” said Bertha, “ better than you think. 
But none scfwell as her. Not even you, father. There is 
nothing half so real and so true about me, as she is. If I 
could be restored to sight this instant, and not a word were 
spoken, I could choose her from a crowd ! My sister ! ” 

“ Bertha, my dear.” said Caleb, “ I have something on my 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


223 


mind I want to tell you, while we three are alone. Hear me 
kindly ! I have a confession to make to you, my darling.” 

“ A confession, father ? ” 

“ I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my 
child,” said Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his bewildered 
face. “ I have wandered from the truth, intending to be kind 
to you ; and have been cruel.” 

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and re- 
peated “ Cruel ! ” 

“ He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha,” said Dot. 
“ You’ll say so, presently. You’ll be the first to tell him so.” 

“ He cruel to me ! ” cried Bertha, with a smile of in- 
credulity. 

‘‘Not meaning it, my child,” said Caleb. “But I have 
been ; though I never suspected it, till yesterday. My dear 
blind daughter, hear me and forgive me ! The world you 
live in, heart of mine, doesn’t exist as I have represented it. 
The eyes you have trusted in, have been false to you.” 

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still ; 
but drew back, and clung closer to her friend. 

“ Your road in life was rough, my poor one,” said Caleb, 
“and I meant to smooth it for you. I have altered objects, 
changed the characters of people, invented many things that 
never have been, to make you happier. I have had conceal- 
ments from you, put deceptions on you, God forgive me ! and 
surrounded you with fancies.” 

“ But living people are not fancies ! ” she said hurriedly, 
and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. “ You 
can’t change them.” 

“ I hat^e done so, Bertha,” pleaded Caleb. “ There is one 
person that you know, my dove ” — 

“ Oh father ! why do you say, I know ? ” she answered, in 
a term of keen reproach. “ What and whom do I know ! I 
who have no leader ! I so miserably blind ! ” 

In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, 
as if she were groping her way ; then spread them, in a man- 
ner most forlorn and sad, upon her face. 

“The marriage that takes place to-day,” smd Caleb, “is 
with a stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master to you 
and me, my dear, for many years. Ugly in his looks, and in 
his nature. Cold and callous always. Unlike what I have 
painted him to you in everything, my child. In everything.” 

“ Oh why,” cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed. 


324 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


almost beyond endurance, “ why did you ever do this ! Why 
did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in like Death, 
and tear away the objects of my love ! O Heaven, how blind 
I am! How helpless and alone I ” 

Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply 
but in his penitence and sorrow. 

She had been but a short time in this passion of regret, 
when the Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all but her, be- 
gan to chirp. Not merrily, but in a low, faint sorrowing 
way. It was so mournful that her tears began to flow ; and 
when the Presence which had been beside the Carrier all 
night, appeared behind her, pointing to her father, they fell 
down like rain. 

She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon, and was 
conscious, through her blindness, of the Presence hovering 
about her father. 

“ Mary,” said the Blind Girl, “ tell me what my home is. 
What it truly is.” 

“ It is a poor place, Bertha ; very poor and bare indeed. 
The house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another win- 
ter. It is as roughly shielded from the weather, Bertha,” 
Dot continued in a low, clear voice, “ as your poor father in 
his sack-cloth coat.” 

The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Car- 
rier’s little wife aside. 

“ Those presents that I took such care of ; that came 
almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me,” she 
said, trembling ; ‘‘ where did they come from ? Did you send 
them.?” 

“ No.” 

“ Who then ? ” 

Dot saw she knew, already, and was silent. The Blind 
Girl spread her hands before her face again. But in quite 
another manner now. 

“ Dear Mary, a moment. One moment ? More this way. 
Speak softly to me. You are true, I know. You’d not de 
ceive me now ; would you ? ” 

“ No, Bertha, indeed ! ” 

“No, I am sure you would not. You have too much pity 
for me. Mary, look across the room to where we were just 
now — to where my father is — my father, so compassionate 
and loving to me — and tell me what you see.” 

“ I see,” said Dot, who understood her well. “ an old man 


- THE CRICKET ON TIl£ HEARTI^ 225 

sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with 
his face resting on his hand. As if his child should comfort 
him, Bertha.” 

“Yes, yes. She will. Go on.” 

“ He is an old man worn with care and work. He is a 
spare, dejected, thoughtful, gray-haired man. I see him now, 
despondent and bowed down, and striving against nothing. 
But, Bertha, I have seen him many times before, and striving 
hard in many ways for one great sacred object. And I honor 
his gray head, and bless him ! ” 

The Blind Girl broke away from her ; and throwing her- 
self upon her knees before him, took the gray head to her 
breast. 

“It is my sight restored. It is my sight!” she cried. 
“I have been blind, and now my eyes are open. I never 
knew him ! To think I might have died, and never truly seen 
the father who has been so loving to me ! ” 

There were no words for Caleb’s emotion. 

“ There is not a gallant figure on this earth,” exclaimed 
the Blind Girl, holding him in her embrace, “ that I would 
love so dearly, and would cherish so devotedly, as this ! The 
grayer, and more worn, the dearer, father ! Never let them 
say I am blind again. There’s not a furrow in his face, 
there’s not a hair upon his head, that shall be forgotten in 
my prayers and thanks to Heaven I ” 

Caleb managed to articulate “ My Bertha I ” 

“ And in my blindness, I telieved him,” said the girl ca- 
ressing him with tears of exquisite affection, “ to be so differ- 
ent 1 And having him beside me, day by day, so mindful of 
me always, never dreamed of this ! ” 

“ The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha,” said 
poor Caleb. “ He’s gone ! ” 

“ Nothing is gone,” she answered. “ Dearest father, no ! 
Everything is here — in you. The father that I loved so well j 
the father that I never loved enough, and never knew ; the 
benefactor whom I first began to reverence and love, because 
he had such sympathy for me ; All are here in you. Nothing 
is dead to me. The soul of all ' that was most dear to me is 
here — here, with the worn face, and the gray head. And I 
am NOT blind, father, any longer I ” 

Dot’s whole attention had been concentrated, during this 
discourse, upon the father and daughter ; but looking, now, 
towards the little Haymaker in the Moorish meadow, she saw 


226 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


the clock was within a few minutes of striking, and fell imme- 
diately, into a nervous and excited state. 

“ Father,” said Bertha, hesitating. .“Mary.” 

“ Yes my dear,” returned Caleb. “ Here she is.” 

“ There is no change in her. You never told me anything 
of her that was not true ? ” 

“ I should have done it my dear, I am afraid,” returned 
Caleb, “ if I could have made her better than she was. But 
I must have changed her for the worse, if I had changed her 
at all. Nothing could improve her, Bertha.” 

Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the 
question, her delight and pride in the reply and her renewed 
embrace of Dot, were charming to behold. 

“ More changes than you think for, may happen though, 
my dear,” said Dot. “ Changes for the better, I mean ; changes 
for great joy to some of us. You mustn’t let them startle 
you too much, if any such should ever happen, and affect you ? ‘ 
Are those wheels upon the road.^ You’ve a quick ear, Ber- 
tha. Are they wheels ? ” 

“ Yes. Coming very fast.” 

“ I — I — I know you have a quick ear,” said Dot, placing 
her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking on, as fast as 
she could, to hide its palpitating state, “ because I have no- 
ticed it often, and because you were so quick to find out that 
strange step last night. Though why you should have said, 
as I very well recollect you did say, Bertha, ‘ Whose step is 
that ! ’ and why you should have taken any greater observa- 
tion of it than of any other step, I don’t know. Though as I 
said just now, there are great changes in the world : great 
changes : and we can’t do better than prepare ourselves to be 
surprised at hardly anything.” 

Caleb wondered what this meant ; perceiving that she 
spoke to him, no less than to his daughter. He saw her, with 
astonishment, so fluttered and distressed that she could scarce- 
ly breathe ; and holding to a chair, to save herself from falling. 

“ They are wheels indeed ! ” she panted, “ Coming nearer! 
Nearer! Very close ! And now you hear them stopping at 
the garden-gate ! And now you hear a step outside the door 
— the same step, Bertha, is it not ! — and now ! ” — 

She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight ; and run- 
ning up to Caleb put her hands upon his eyes, as a young man 
rushed into the room, and flinging away his hat into the air, 
came sweeping down upon them. 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


227 


** Is it over ? ” cried Dot. 

“ Yes 

“ Happily over? ” 

“ Yes ! ” 

“ Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb ? Did you ever 
hear the like of it before ? ” cried Dot. 

“ If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive ” — 
said Caleb, trembling. 

“ He is alive ! ” shrieked Dot, removing her hands from 
his eyes, and clapping them in ecstasy ; “ look at him ! See 
where he stands before you, healthy and* strong ! Your own 
dear son ! Your own dear living, loving brother, Bertha ! ” 

All honor to the little creature for her transports ! All 
honor to her tears and laughter, when the three were locked 
in one another’s arms ! All honor to the heartiness with 
which she met the sunburnt sailor-fellow, with his dark 
streaming hair, half way, and never turned her rosy little 
mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it, freely, and to press 
her to his bounding heart ! 

And honor to the Cuckoo too — why not ! — for bursting 
out of the trap-door in the Moorish Palace like a housebreaker, 
and hiccoughing twelve times on the assembled company, as 
if he had got drunk for joy ! 

The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he might, 
to find himself in such good company. 

“ Look, John ! ” said Caleb, exultingly, “look here ! My 
own boy from the Golden South Americas ! My own son ! 
Him that you fitted out, and sent away yourself ! Him that 
you were always such a friend to ! ” 

The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand ; but, re- 
coiling, as some feature in his face awakened a remembrance 
of the Deaf Man in the Cart, said : 

“ Edward ! Was it you ? ” 

“ Now tell him all ! ” cried Dot. “ Tell him all, Edward ; 
and don’t spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself 
in his eyes, ever again.” 

“ I was the man,” said Edward. 

“ And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your 
old friend ? ” rejoined the Carrier. “ There was a frank boy 
once — how many years is it, Caleb, since we heard that he 
was dead, and had it proved, we thought ? — who never would 
have done that.” 

“There was a generous friend of mine, once; more a 


228 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


father to me than a friend ; ’’ said Edward, who never 
would have judged me, or any other man, unheard. You 
were he. So I am certain you will hear me now.” ^ 

The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept 
far away from him, replied “ Well ! that’s but fair. I will.” 

“You must know that when I left here, a boy,” said Ed- 
ward,” I was in love, and my love was returned. She was a 
very young girl, w^ho perhaps (you may tell me) didn’t know 
her own mind. But I knew mine, and I had* a passion for 
her.’ 

“ You had ! ” exchaimed the Carrier. “ You ! ” 

“ Indeed I had,” returned the other. “ And she returned 
it. I have ever since believed she did, and I am sure she did.” 

“ Heaven help me ! ” said the Carrier. “ This is worse 
than all.” 

“ Constant to her,” said Edward, “ and returning, full of 
hope, after many hardships and perils, to redeem my part of 
our old contract, I heard, twenty miles away, that she was 
false to me ; that she had forgotten me ; and had bestowed 
herself upon another and a richer man. I had no mind to 
reproach her ; but I wished to see her, and to prove beyond 
dispute that this was true. I hoped she might have been 
forced into it, against her own desire and recollection. It 
would be small comfort, but it would be some, I thought, and 
on I came. That I might have the truth, the real truth ; ob- 
serving freely for myself, and judging for myself, without 
obstruction on the one hand, or presenting my own influence 
(if I had any) before her, on the other; I dressed myself — 
unlike myself — ^you know how ; and waited on the road — you 
know where. You had no suspicion of me; neither had — had 
she,” pointing to Dot, “ until I whispered in her ear at that 
fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me.’ ’ 

“ But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had 
come back,” sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she had 
burned to do all through this narrative : “ and when she 
knew his purpose, she advised him by all means to keep his 
secret close ; for his old friend John Peerybingle was much too 
open in his nature, and too clumsy in all artifice — being a 
clumsy man in general,” said Dot, half laughing and half cry- 
ing — “ to keep it for him. And when she — that’s me, John,” 
sobbed the little woman — “told him all, and how his sweet- 
heart had believed him to be dead ; and how she had at last 
been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


229 

silly, deal* old thing called advantageous ; and when she — 
that’s me again, John — told him they were not yet married 
(though close upon it), and that it would be nothing but a 
sacrifice if it went on, for there was no love on her side ; and 
when he went nearly mad with joy to hear it ; then she — that’s 
me again — said she would go between them, as she had often 
done before in old times, John, and would sound his sweet- 
heart and be sure that what she — me again, John — said and 
thought was right. And it was right, John ! And they were 
brought together, John ! And they were married, John, an 
hour ago ! And here’s the Bride ! And Gruff and Tackleton 
may die a bachelor ! And I’m a happy little woman, May, 
God bless you ! ” 

She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to 
the purpose ; and never so completely irresistible as in her 
present transports. There never were congratulations so en- 
dearing and delicious, as those she lavished on herself and on 
the Bride. 

Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest 
Carrier had stood, confounded. Flying, now, towards her. 
Dot stretched out her hand to stop him, and retreated as 
before. 

“No John, no ! Hear all ! Don’t love me any more, John, 
till you’ve heard every word I have to say. It was wrong to 
have a secret from you, John. I’m very sorry. I didn’t 
think it any harm, till I came and sat down by you on the 
little stool last night. But when I knew by what was written 
in your face, that you had seen me walking in the gallery with 
Edward, and when I knew what you thought, I felt how giddy 
and how wrong it was. But oh, dear John, how could you, 
could you, think so ! ” 

Little woman, how she sobbed again ! John Peerybingle 
would have caught her in his arms. But no j she wouldn’t 
let him. 

“ Don’t you love me yet, please John ! Not for a long 
time yet ! When I was sad about this intended marriage, 
dear, it was because I remembered May and Edward such 
young lovers ; and knew that her heart was far away from 
Tackleton. You believe that, now. Don’t you John?” 

John was going to make another rush at this appeal ; but 
she stopped him again. 

“ No ; keep there, please John ! When I laugh at you, as 
I sometimes do, John, and call you clumsy and a dear old 


230 


THE CRICKET OK THE HEARTH 


goose, and names of that soft, it’s because I love you John, so 
well, and take such pleasure in your ways, and wouldn’t see 
you altered in the least respect to have you made a King to* 
morrow.” 

“ Hooroar ! ” said Caleb, with unusual vigor. “ My 
opinion ! ” 

“ And when I speak of people being middle-aged, and 
steady, John, and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, go- 
ing on in a jog-trot sort of way, it’s only because I’m such a 
silly little thing, John, that I like, sometimes, to act a kind of 
Play with Baby, and all that : and make believe.” 

She saw that he was coming ; and stopped him again. But 
she was very nearly too late. 

“ No, don’t love me for another minute or two, if you 
please John 1 What I want most to tell you, I have kept to 
the last. My dear, good, generous John, when we were talk- 
ing the other night about the ‘Cricket, I had it on my lips to 
say, that at first I did not love you quite so dearly as I do 
now ; that when I first came home here, I was half afraid I 
mightn’t learn to love you every bit as well as I hoped and 
prayed I might — ^being so very young, John ! But, dear John, 
every day and hour I loved you more and more. And if I 
could have loved you better than I do, the noble words I heard 
you say this morning, would have made me. But I can’t. All 
the affection that I had (it was a great deal John) I gave you, 
as you well deserve, long, long ago, and I have no more left 
to give. Now, my dear husband, take me to your heart again ! 
That’s my home, John ; and never, never think of sending nie 
to any other ! ” 

You never will derive so much delight from seeing a 
glorious little woman in the arms of a third party, as you would 
have felt if you had seen Dot run into the Carrier’s embrace. 
It was the most complete, unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece 
of earnestness that ever you beheld in all your days. . : 

You may be sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rap- 
ture ; and you may be sure Dot was likewise ; and you may 
be sure they all were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who wept 
copiously for joy, and wishing to include her young charge in 
the general interchange of congratulations, handed round the 
Baby to everybody in succession, as if it were something to 
drink. 

But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside the 
door; and somebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton 


THE CRICKET OK THE HEARTH, :^ 2^1. 

was coming back. Speedily that worthy gentleman appeared,; 
looking warm and flustered. , ,, 

“Why, what the Devil’s this, John Peerybingle ’’ saiii; 
Tackleton. “ There’s some mistake, I appointed Mrs. Tackle- 
ton to meet me at the church, and I’ll swear I passed 
the road, on her way here. Oh ! here she is 1,. J’ beg -your 
pardon, sir; I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you .but if 
you can do me the favor to spare this young lady, she .has 
rather a particular engagement this mornings” . 

“But I can’t spare her,” returned Edward. “I couldn’t 
think of it.” , . > 

“ What do you mean, you vagabond ?” said Tackleton. , 
“I mean, that as I can make allowance for your being 
vexed,” returned the other with a smile, “I am as deaf: fq 
harsh discourse this morning, as I was to ^1 discourse lafSt 
night.” , 

The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start 
he gave ! 

“I am sorry, sir,” said Edward, holding ; out May’s left 
hand and especially the third finger ; “ that the young lady 
can’t accompany you to church; but as she has been there 
once, this morning, perhaps you’ll excuse her.” , . 

Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little 
piece of silver paper, apparently containing a ring, from his 
waistcoat-pocket 

“Miss Slowby,” said Tackleton. “Will you have the 
kindness to throw that in the fire ? Thank’ee.’’ 

“ It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, 
that prevented my wife from keeping her appointment with 
you, I assure you,” said Edward. 

“Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to .acknowledge 
that I revealed it to him faithfully, and that I told him, many 
times I never could forget it,” said May blushing; ; 

“ Oh certainly 1 ” said Tackleton. “ Oh to be snre. Qh 
it’s all right. It’s quite correct. Mrs. Edward Plummer, I 
infer ” ■ . 

“ That’s the name,” returned the bridegroom, 

“Ah, I shouldn’t have known you sir,” said Tackleton, 
scrutinizing his face narrowly, and making a low bow. “ I 
give you joy sir! ” 

“Thank’ee.” 

“ Mrs. Peerybingle,” said Tackleton, turning suddenly to 
where she stood with her husband; “ I am sorry. , You 


* 3 * 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 


haven’t done me a very great kindness, but upon my life I am 
sorry. You are better than I thought you. John Peerybingle, I 
am sorry. You understand me ; that’s enough. It’s quite cor- 
rect, ladies and gentlemen all, and perfectly satisfactory. Good- 
moming I ” 

With these words he carried it off, and carried himself off 
too : merely stopping at the door, to take the flowers and 
favors from his horse’s head, and to kick that animal once, in 
the ribs, as a means of informing him that there was a screw 
loose in his arrangements. 

Of course it became a serious duty now, to make such a 
day of it, as should mark these events for a high Feast and 
Festival in the Peerybingle Calendar for evermore. Accord- 
ingly, Dot went to work to produce such an entertainment, as 
should reflect undying honor on the house and on every one 
concerned ; and in a very short space of time, she was up to 
her dimpled elbows in flour, and ^whitening the Carrier’s coat, 
every time he came near her, by stopping him to give him a 
kiss. That good fellow washed the greens, and peeled the 
turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold 
water on the fire, and made himself useful in all sorts of ways : 
while a couple of professional assistants, hastily called in 
from somewhere in the neighborhood, as on a point of life or 
death, ran against each other in all the doorways and round 
all the corners, and everybody tumbled over Tilly Slowboy 
and the Baby, everywhere. Tilly never came out in such force 
before. Her ubiquity was the theme of general admiration. 
She was a stumbling-block in the passage at five-and-twenty 
minutes past two ; a man-trap in the kitchen at half-past two 
precisely ; and a pitfall in the garret at five-and-twenty min- 
utes to three. The Baby’s head was, as it were, a test and 
touchstone for every description of matter, — animal, vegetable, 
and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn’t come, 
at some time or other, into close acquaintance with it. 

Then, there was a great Expedition set on foot to go and 
find out Mrs. Fielding j and to be dismally penitent to that 
excellent gentlewoman ; and to bring her back, by force, if 
needful, to be happy and forgiving. And when the Expedi- 
tion first discovered her, she would listen to no terms at all, 
but said, an unspeakable number of times, that ever she 
should have lived to see the day ! and couldn’t be got to say 
anything else, except, ‘‘Now carry me to the grave : ” which 
seemed absurd, on account of her not being dead, or anything 


THE CRICKET OH THE HEARTH, 


233 


at all like it. After a time, she lapsed into a state of dreadful 
calmness, and observed, that when that unfortunate train 
of circumstances had occurred in the Indigo Trade, she had 
forseen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to 
every species of insult and contumely ; and that she was glad 
to find it was the case ; and begged they wouldn’t trouble 
themselves about her, — for what was she ? oh, dear ! a no- 
body ! — but would forget that such a being lived, and would 
take their course in life without her. From this bitterly sar- 
castic mood, she passed into an angry one, in which she gave 
vent to the remarkable expression that the worm would turn 
if trodden on ; and, after that, she yielded to a soft regret, 
and said, if they had only given her their confidence, what 
might she not have had it in her power to suggest ! Taking 
advantage of thi's crisis in her feelings, the Expedition em- 
braced her y and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on 
her way to John Peeiy^TDingle’s in a state of unimpeachable 
gentility ; with a paper parcel at her side containing a cap of 
state, almost as tall, and quite as stiff, as a mitre. 

Then, there were Dot’s father and mother to come, in an- 
other little chaise ; and they were behind their time ; and 
fears were entertained ; and there was much looking out for 
them down the road ; and Mrs. Fielding always would look 
in the wrong and morally impossible direction ; and being 
apprised thereof, hoped she might take the liberty of looking 
where she pleased. At last they came : a chubby little couple 
jogging along in a snug and comfortable little way that quite 
belonged to the Dot family ; and Dot and her mother, side by 
side, were wonderful to see. They were so like each other. 

Then, Dot’s mother had to renew her acquaintance with 
May’s mother ; and May’s mother always stood on her gen- 
tility; and Dot’s mother never stood on anything but her 
active little feet. And old Dot — so to call Dot’s father, I 
forgot it wasn’t his right name, but never mind — took liberties 
and shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think a cap but 
so much starch and muslin, and didn’t defer himself at all to 
the Indigo Trade, but said there was no help for it now; and, 
in Mrs. Fielding’s summing up, was a good-natured kind of 
man — but coarse, my dear. 

I wouldn’t have missed Dot, doing the honors in her wed- 
ding-gown, my benison on her bright face ! for any money. 
No ! nor the good Carrier, so jovial and so ruddy, at the bot- 
tom of the table. Nor the brown, fresh sailor-fellow, and his 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


#34 

handsome wife. Nor any one among them. To have missed 
the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a 
meal as man need eat ; and to have missed the overflowing 
cups in which they drank The Wedding-Day, would have 
been the greatest miss of all. 

After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling 
Bowl. As I’m a living man, hoping to keep so, for a year or 
two, he sang it through. 

And, by the bye, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, 
just as he finished the last verse. 

There was a tap at the door ; and a man came staggering in, 
without saying with your leave, or by your leave, with some- 
thing heavy on his head. Setting this down in the middle of 
the table, symmetrically in the centre of the nuts and apples, 
he said : 

“ Mr. Tackleton’s compliments, and as he hasn’t got no 
use for the cake himself, p’raps you’ll eat it.” 

And with those words, he walked off. 

There was some surprise among the company, as you may 
imagine. Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, 
suggested that the cake was poisoned, and related a narrative 
of a cake, which, within her knowledge, had turned a semi- 
nary for young ladies, blue. But she was overruled by ac- 
clamation ; and the cake was cut by May, with much cere- 
mony and rejoicing. 

I don’t think any one had tasted it, when there came 
another tap at the door, and the same man appeared again, 
having under his arm a vast brown paper parcel. 

“ Mr. Tackleton’s compliments, and he’d sent a few toys 
for the Babby. They ain’t ugly.” 

After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again. 

The whole party would have experienced great difficulty 
in finding words for their astonishment, even if they had had 
ample time to seek them. But, they had none at all ; for, the 
messenger had scarcely shut the door behind him, when there 
came another tap, and Tackleton himself walked in. 

“ Mrs. Peerybingle ! ” said the Toy-merchant, hat in hand. 
“I’m sorry. I’m more sorry than I was this morning. I have 
had time to think of it. John Peerybingle ! I’m sour by dis- 
position ; but I can’t help being sweetened, more or less, by 
coming face to face with such a man as you. Caleb ! This 
unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night, of 
which I have found the thread. I blush to think how easily I 


THE CRICKET OH THE HEARTH 


23S 

might have bound you and your daughter to me, and what a 
miserable idiot I was, when I took her for one I Friends, one 
and all, my house is very lonely to-night. I have not so much 
as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have scared them all away. 
Be gracious to me ; let me join this happy party ! ” » 

He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a 
fellow. What had he been doing with himself all his life, 
never to have known, before, his great capacity of being jovial ! 
Or what had the Fairies been doing with him, to have effected 
such a change ! 

“ John ! you won’t send me home this evening ; will you ? ” 
whispered Dot. 

He had been very near it though ! 

There wanted but one living creature to make the party 
complete ; and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he was, very 
thirsty with hard running, and engaged in hopeless endeavors 
to squeeze his head into a narrow pitcher. He had gone with 
the cart to its journey’s end, very much disgusted with the 
absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to the 
Deputy. After lingering about the stable for some little time, 
vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act 
of returning on his own account, he had walked into the tap 
room and laid himself down before the fire. But suddenly 
yielding to the conviction that the Deputy was a humbug, and 
must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail, and 
come home. 

There was a dance in the evening. With which general 
mention of that recreation, I should have left it alone, if I 
had not some reason to suppose that it was quite an original 
dance, and one of a most uncommon figure. It was formed 
in an odd way ; in this way. 

Edward, that sailor-fellow — a good free dashing sort of a 
fellow he was — had been telling them various marvels con- 
cerning parrots, and mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust, 
when all at once he took it in his head to jump up from his 
seat and propose a danc^ ; for Bertha’s harp was there, and 
she had such a hand upon it as you seldom hear. Dot (sly 
little piece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing 
days were over ; I think because the Carrier was smoking his 
pipe, and she liked sitting by him, best. Mrs. Fielding had 
no choice, of course, but to say her dancing days were over, 
after that ; and everybody said the same, except May \ May 
was ready 


236 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 


So, May and Edward got up, amid great applause, to dance 
alone ; and Bertha plays her liveliest tune. 

Well ! if you’ll believe me, they have not been dancing 
five minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, 
takes Dot round the waist, dashes out into the room, and 
starts off with her, toe and heel, quite wonderfully. Tackle- 
ton no sooner sees this, than he skims across to Mrs. Field- 
ing, takes her round the waist, and follows suit. Old Dot 
no sooner sees this, than up he is, all alive, whisks off Mrs. 
Dot in the middle of the dance, and is the foremost there. 
Caleb no sooner sees this, than he clutches Tilly Slowboy by 
both hands and goes off at score ; Miss Slowboy, firm in the 
belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and effect- 
ing any number of concussions with them, is your only prin- 
ciple of footing it. 

Hark ! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, 
Chirp, Chirp ; and how the kettle hums ! 

But what is this ! Even as I listen to them, blithely, and 
turn towards Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very 
pleasant to me, she and the rest have vanished into air, and 
I am left alone. A Cricket sings upon the Hearth ; a broken 
child’s-toy lies upon the ground ; and nothing else remains. 



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HI.’-THE NEWCOMES. ' .0 t 

IV. THE \TRGINIANS. ' ' 

V. THE ADVENTURES OP PHILIP, to which is prefixed A SHABBY , 
GENTEEL STORY. 

VI. HENRY ESMOND, CATHARINE, DENNIS DUVAL, AND LOVEL 
THE WIDOWER. , . . , 

Vn. PARIS, IRISH, AND EASTERN SKETCHES. , j, 

vni. BARRY LYNDON, GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND, ETC. : 

< Barry Lyndon. I Sketches and Travels in London. f 

Great Hoggarty Diamond. | Character Sketches. 

Men’s Wives. 


IX. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, THE FOUR GEORGES, ETC.: 


Roundabout Papers, 
The Four Georges. 

• English Humorists. 


Second Funeral op Napoleon. 
Critical Reviews. 

Selections from Punch. 


I • 


t 

I 


X. ^ BURLESQUES, YELLOWPLUSH PAPERS, ETC.: 


Novels by Eminent Hands. ^ 
Jeames’s Story. 

Adventures op Major Gahagan. 

A Legend op the Rhine. 

Rebecca and Rowena. 

The History op the next French 
Revolution. 

Little 


Cox’s Diary. 

Yellowplush Papers. 

Fitsboodle Papers. 

The Wolves and the Lamb. 

The Bedpord Row Conspiracy. ' 
A Little Dinner at Timmins’s. 
The Fatal Boots. 




XI. CHRISTMAS BOOKS, BOOK OP SNOBS, AND BALLADS.: 


Mrs. Perkins’s Ball. 
Dr. Birch.^ 

Our Street. 


The Kicklebubys on the Rhine. 
The Rose and the Ring. 

Book op Snobs. 

Ballads 




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The Betrothed. 


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Legend op Montrose. 
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St. Ronan’s Well. 

Guy Mannering. 

Anne op Geierstein. 


VI. 


vn. 


vin. 


IX. 


X. 


XI. 


xn. 


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Heart of Midlothian. 

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Redgauntlet. 

The Pirate. 

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The Betrot o. 


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< vTTJSX X>XJ'23XjISEtXir> s 

I SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS 

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J they discuss the action of frost on water-pipes and on building materials. The 

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" We highly recommend this most entertaining and vauable collection of 
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LIFE OF OLIVER Cf^OS^SWELL, 

His Life, Times, Batt' efleids, and Contemporaries, by 

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